Seregil took up the pen and began to write. As much as he hated including Malthus’s name on the list, he knew better than to omit it. The man had brought this on himself, but that didn’t make Seregil feel any better about it.
Korathan took the list and scanned it, scowling. “My truth knower is going to be busy. Is there anything else you haven’t told me about them? Any other names?”
“No, you have it all.”
“What about husbands and wives?” Alec asked softly.
“We have no evidence that any of them are involved,” Seregil put in quickly.
“I’ll take that under consideration. That’s all.”
Dismissed and disgraced, they bowed and took their leave.
* * *
“You might have warned us,” Seregil grumbled as the three of them left the Palace.
Thero rounded on him, pale eyes flashing, and whispered, “I didn’t know until I got there! If you two had paid more attention to the problem at hand, instead of haring off through the slums for Valerius, it might not have come to this. Who knows how many conspirators will escape now?”
“We did all we could! And were we just supposed to abandon Myrhichia and Eirual?” Seregil retorted angrily, but deep down the wizard’s accusation struck home. Had they missed something important, all that time chasing ravens?
Thero glared at him, then turned on his heel and collected his horse from a groom who was goggling at the argument. As he mounted, the wizard looked back and said, “I was going to send word. You should speak with Miya at the House.” With that he urged his horse into a trot and went his way.
“Miya?” asked Alec.
“He mentioned her that day at the Yellow Eel Street temple, when Korathan first began shoving the sick into the Ring. She’s old Teleus’s successor.”
“I think we should go see her now.”
Seregil shrugged. “Oh, I think we’re finished here, don’t you? Come on. Maybe we can be useful to someone.”
Hearing her described as “old Teleus’s successor,” Alec was expecting Miya to be Thero’s age, but the wizardess was three hundred and fifty if she was a day, stooped and slack-breasted in her rose-colored silk robes. A fourth-degree thaumaturgist, she lived on the fourth floor of the Oreska House in a set of rooms much less impressive than Thero’s.
“Ah, Lord Seregil,” she greeted them with more resignation than pleasure. “And this must be Lord Alec. Lord Thero said to expect you.”
Leading them through a small, smelly workroom filled with cages of animals, she settled them in the sitting room beyond, which also smelled of animals. A young dragon the size of a cat sat on a perch overhead and hissed at them as they came in.
Seregil looked up sharply at the sound and Miya chuckled and pointed to the mark of the dragon bite across his left hand. “You’ve had some experience with the young ones, haven’t you, Aurenfaie?”
“Yes.”
Wine and cups stood on the sideboard, but they weren’t offered any. Alec got the distinct impression that their visit was nothing to her but an annoying interruption of her work.
Miya lowered herself into a sagging armchair and motioned them to a pair of wooden chairs. “Thero says you’re investigating the plague in the poorer quarters.”
“Yes. I understand your master was an expert in various death magics,” Seregil replied. “I was hoping you might have heard of something similar to this sleeping death.”
She nodded toward the workroom. “As you can see, my studies have taken me in a different direction, though I daresay I know more about death magic than most under this roof.” She reached over to a side table and carefully picked up a dusty, fragile scroll. “I found this in the cases of my master’s personal library. Do you boys read Red Sun Period Zengati?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
Alec glanced sidelong at his friend in surprise; he hadn’t thought there was any language Seregil didn’t have some knowledge of.
She sniffed at that, then gently smoothed out a portion of the scroll. “This was written by a traveler to eastern Zengat some four centuries ago, Teleus thought. I don’t know how it came to him. It’s just a journal, really, and talks about all sorts of different things, but here it mentions what the author calls the falling sickness, which he describes as a kind of trance a person falls into for reasons unknown. And then they die.”
“That’s all?” asked Alec. “It doesn’t say what caused it?”
The old woman spared him a scathing look. “No, it doesn’t. But an intelligent person might gather from this that it’s Zengati magic. Hardly surprising, really, with those folk. Always killing each other off in nasty ways.”
“And there’s no mention of a treatment for it?” asked Seregil.
“No, it just says they die. I told you already, the author was a traveler, not a wizard. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
She showed them unceremoniously to the door and closed it firmly behind them.
“Thero could have told us that much at the Palace!” Alec exclaimed softly as they made their way down to the atrium.
“I don’t think he was in the mood to do us any favors.”
“So this is Zengati magic. I wonder if that’s why Thero couldn’t sense it?”
“Perhaps, but I’m not prepared to take anything for granted. It’s time we caught a raven.”
CHAPTER 36. Honor
“I’M worried about Danos,” Beka told Nyal as they sat together on a knoll overlooking the latest battlefield. Drysians, camp followers, and carrion crows were moving among the fallen. In the distance, beyond the queen’s tent, funeral pyres were being built. The sound of axes echoed through the forest behind them.
Hardly an hour earlier they’d been fighting one of the bloodiest battles in months against half a regiment of the Plenimarans’ best infantry. Nyal and another scout had brought in news of the enemy just before dawn, and apparently the enemy’s scouts had done the same, for they met a prepared force almost immediately after that and ended up fighting with empty bellies for most of the day before Klia had broken the back of the Plenimaran line. After that it was a rout, but a hard-won victory all the same.
And the Plenimarans were regrouping.
“What about Danos?” asked Nyal. “I heard from the healer that his wounds wouldn’t kill him.”
“It’s not that. It’s how he got them,” Beka replied. “Have you seen how he’s thrown himself in harm’s way since the night Klia questioned him?”
“He’s always been a fierce leader.”
“It’s more than that. He took crazy risks today, and it’s not the first time since word of his father’s arrest came. I saw him outride his squadron today, and head straight into a line of enemy pike men.”
“Ah.” Nyal plucked a strand of wind-sere grass and twirled
it between long fingers. “You think he’s trying to prove his honor through a valiant death?”
“Something like that.”
“Has the commander noticed?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to keep an eye on him.”
“I think you should speak with him, before it’s too late.”
In the past Danos had never been hard to find in camp; he was always at one fire or another with his people, laughing and praising. Tonight, however, Beka had to ask the way to his tent.
He was outside, currying his horse by the light of a lantern. Perhaps that had been Caem’s job. Beka had never taken on a servant, but Danos was a noble, and used to such things. All the same, she doubted that accounted for his morose expression. He didn’t cheer up at the sight of her stepping into the light.
“I suppose you’ve come to tell me to be more careful, too,” he said, facing her across the horse’s back. “Anri was just here.”
“Did it do any good?” Beka smoothed a hand down the bay’s dusty withers. “We can’t afford to lose you, you know. Killing yourself is no different than desertion.”
Danos let out a humorless laugh as he
brushed harder at his horse’s side, raising a small cloud of dirt and horsehair. “You certainly don’t honey your words.”
“You’re a good man, Danos, and a good friend. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’ve heard the news about my father. Everyone has. Disgraced. Stripped of his title and lands. Exiled. What is there for me to go back for? What would you have me do? Become a caravan guard, or perhaps a professional gambler? Those are the extent of my marketable skills.”
“Horse shit. You’re intelligent, you have friends and your own fortune and holdings. Those haven’t been taken away, have they?”
Danos shrugged. “So, from the scion of one of the most respected and powerful families in Rhiminee, to a country knight. How would you feel about that, if it were you?”
“My father is a country knight,” Beka reminded him with a smile. “It’s not so bad.”
“Do you really think I care so little for my officers?” asked a familiar voice. Beka and Danos both fell to one knee, fist to heart, as Queen Phoria stepped into the light to join them. She’d taken off her cuirass and crowned helm, but still wore her field uniform with the royal flame and crescent moon insignia on the breast; chain mail glinted at the neck of her tunic. Klia was with her, her uniform stained in dark patches with blood.
“My sister tells me that you have been taking extravagant risks in battle,” Phoria continued.
Danos bowed his head in silence.
Klia started to order him up, but Phoria stopped her, then placed her gloved hand on his head. “The truth knower determined your innocence, Captain Danos. Your father confessed to using you in his machinations, but insisted that you were not a conspirator.”
“Under torture?” Danos said bitterly, without looking up.
“There was no need. Once arrested, he confessed willingly to the conspiracy. That is why I instructed my brother the vicegerent to exile him, rather than execution. His title and lands are yours by right, and you shall have them, if you don’t go getting yourself killed.”
“Your Majesty is kind and generous,” Danos replied softly, “but how do I erase the stain on my birthright? How do I quell the whispering that’s sure to follow me for the rest of my days?”
Phoria snorted at that. “Hold your head up and show them differently, of course. Most people will forget in a season, and those who don’t aren’t worth your consideration.”
Danos looked up not at the queen, but at Klia. “And can you look past my father’s machinations against you? Against your very life?”
“I know the man you are, Captain,” she replied. “There is evidence that your father was coerced to some extent by Marquis Kyrin, who held certain information against him. But regardless of that, your father’s sins are not your own.
Whatever the reason, he used you and your position to his own advantage. If anyone should be angry, it’s you.”
The young man’s eyes glimmered in the lantern light. “The father I knew was a good, kind man.”
“And an ambitious one,” said the queen. “Learn from his errors, and know that I will not forgive if you seek any kind of vengeance.”
“Never, Majesty-”
“Enough. Now, I do have some conditions to the restoration of your holdings. First, you are to have nothing more to do with my niece.”
Beka saw Danos’s fleeting look of pain as he nodded. Everyone knew of the princess royal’s favor, though Danos never boasted of it.
“Aloud, Captain,” Klia ordered.
“I swear on my honor,” Danos replied.
“My second condition is that you do not seek a place at court,” Phoria went on. “Do you swear to this, as well?”
“I do, Majesty, on my honor.”
“Very well, then. Carry on.” With that she nodded and walked away into the darkness.
“I don’t deserve her mercy,” Danos muttered, getting to his feet.
“See that you live up to it,” said Klia as she followed Phoria. “No more throwing your life away. It belongs to the queen as long as you wear that uniform.”
Beka rose and went to Danos. “I’m sorry about Elani.”
Danos said nothing, just went back to currying his horse.
CHAPTER 37. The Hunt, Interrupted
STEALING away to the inn, Seregil, Alec, and Micum prepared their disguises and headed for the slums near the Temple Precinct, where Kepi had heard of new outbreaks of the sleeping death.
“We’re not likely to hear about too many sick ones, the way people feel about the quarantine,” Seregil noted as they set off.
The Lower City and the Ring had been relatively simple to cordon off; the sprawling open neighborhoods of the Upper City were impossible, so the sick were all being moved into the Ring to be overseen by drysians. Even though Korathan had ordered that one of the pastoral sections be used, no one wanted their loved ones taken inside and the protests continued.
Seregil and Alec dressed as beggar women again, since they’d managed to pass easily in that guise. Micum wore a stained tunic and breeches he kept there for just such purposes, and Seregil’s battered hat. He hadn’t shaved since he arrived in Rhiminee and had a good start on a grey-sprinkled scruff. They attracted little attention as they walked along the Street of the Sheaf to the slums east of the Sea Market and made their way slowly through the squalid lanes and sagging tenements.
They worked all morning, and into the afternoon. Although it was safer here than in the Ring, it wasn’t necessarily safe. Micum, posing as their protector, cast a baleful eye at any who seemed overly interested in his “women.”
This area had absorbed more of the Mycenians who’d fled the war, and people in country garb sat on doorsteps and leaned out of windows.
The Dalnan temple in Wayfarer’s Street was better maintained than the one in the Lower City, but not by much. A priestess greeted them and listened with concern to Seregil’s tale of a missing child.
“It’s not like her to run off, being just a little one,” Seregil told her tearfully. “I seen her with a beggar the other day, and now I fear she’d fallen with the sleeping death somewhere, and no one to care for her. Is she here, sister?”
“We’ve only had two of the sleepers: a man and a boy,” the priestess told him. “But the bluecoats came and took them.”
Seregil clung to Micum’s arm as they made their way out and down the street. When they were well out of sight of the temple he straightened up and carefully patted his face dry with a corner of his shawl, so as not to disturb the cosmetics of his disguise.
“Just as you thought,” Alec said softly. “Now what?”
“We keep hunting,” Seregil murmured back, slipping his arm through Micum’s like a wife out with her husband.
They continued on, wandering down squalid side streets edged with offal and full of dirty children playing with whatever they could find. One had found a rusty barrel hoop and was rolling it down the street with a stick. Micum caught it as it rolled by.
“Hey, give it!” the boy cried, seizing up a stone from the muddy street and cocking his arm to throw.
Micum grinned. “Just want to ask you a question, boy. The answer’s worth a penny and your hoop back.”
The boy sidled closer, as did several of his playmates. They all had rocks.
“We’re lookin’ for raven folk,” Micum told him.
“What you want with ’em?” the boy demanded.
“What do you care? Or don’t you want my money?”
The boy lowered his arm. “Yeah, we seen ’em around. I traded one for a yellow stone, but I lost it.”
Just as well, thought Seregil, wondering if that might save the child. “Who did you trade with, dearie?”
“Yellow-headed fellow on a crutch.”
“Where was this?”
“Over near the Ring wall, end of Barrow Lane.”
“Have you seen any others?” asked Alec, pulling off a reasonably feminine voice.
The boy shrugged. “There’s an old
woman, and a blond-headed young feller. Seen ’em around here and there.”
“When did you last see one of them?” asked Micum.
The boy consulted with his comrades.
“I seen the woman yesterday,” one of the taller boys replied.
“And I seen the woman, over by the nail maker’s stall,” a ragged young girl put in.
“Me too, me too!” several others clamored, and Seregil guessed that most of them were lying in hopes of a penny.
Micum handed out coins all around and gave the boy back his hoop. The children darted away like a flock of dingy swallows.
“Think it was money well spent?” asked Alec as they walked on.
Seregil smiled. “At least a few of them were telling the truth. We know about the old man and old woman. And I’ve heard rumors of younger ones.”
“If your wizard woman was right, then shouldn’t the ravens be Zengati?” asked Micum. “A ‘blond-headed feller’ doesn’t sound right. And chances are at least some of the children would have seen a Zengati trader or two to know the difference.”
“You probably don’t have to be Zengati to practice Zengati magic, though,” said Alec. “So, where to first?”
“Let’s split up for a while,” Seregil replied. “I’ll go over by the Ring wall. Micum, you check out the nail maker. Alec, try the marketplace a few streets over.” He glanced up at the sinking sun. “If you find one, just follow them. I’ll meet you back here when the sun touches the rooftops. If you don’t come back, I’ll find you.”
But either all the children had been lying, or the ravens had already moved on again, for Seregil found the other two waiting for him at the appointed time, equally empty-handed.
* * *
They set off again early the following day, picking up a few hopeful reports of sightings and trades over the course of the morning, but not finding their quarry.
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