by Glenda Larke
Gerelda nodded. “So, what’s my task?”
“I want you to leave for Lowmeer as soon as possible. I would very much like you to go with her, Peregrine. I think your talent for identifying pitch-men is of great importance to us all. I know you have experienced a terrible loss, and you’ve behaved with great courage and dignity and strength of purpose. I have no right to ask you to help us, but I do. I ask you to serve Va-faith. The best way to do that at the moment is to go to Lowmeer.”
“And if he refuses?” Gerelda asked.
“I will see that he is housed at one of our seminaries where he can study, if he chooses. It will be his choice, his free choice.”
He stared at her, his heart thumping. His overwhelming reaction was one of relief. At last, someone who recognised the gnawing need inside him, the need to do something to rid the world of pitch-men. To get rid of that dark, tarry contamination. He didn’t want to be safe; he didn’t want to be a student. He wanted to find out why his father had died. He needed to know what made men kill and eat someone who’d never done them any harm.
“I’ll go wherever you want,” he said eagerly, and held his breath in case she changed her mind.
“I thought you would. Barden, talk to the tailor about some new clothes for him, will you? Garments suitable for every possible occasion.”
Gerelda strode with Peregrine down the centre of the street leading to the docks, following a contingent of the Pontifect’s guards. In the first dawn light their uniforms were colourless; in the emptiness of deserted streets their steps echoed. Behind her another ten guards marched. She’d complained to Fritillary that being accompanied by guards drew attention to them and where they were going, but Fritillary had just smiled. When a drunken band of men spilling out from a tavern laughed at them and made vulgar remarks about unwanted crims always being thrown out of the city in the dead of night, she realised why.
Damn Fritillary, she’s always one step ahead of me! The guards were part of their disguise.
But still, this was rattling, dizzy-eyed madness.
She was Lowmian, but she wasn’t from a noble family, and one thing she knew for certain was that she didn’t want to have to deal with any court. Yet here she was, about to embark on a barge to travel down the River Ard to the port of Borage and, from there, to board a flat boat to Ustgrind. In her baggage, which she’d been told was already on board, she had letters from the Pontifect to the Lowmian Prime and to the Regala Mathilda. But she still had no idea how she was going to bring Peregrine and the Lowmian heir, Prince-regal Karel, together in the same room. Her real skills lay not in understanding court etiquette, but in the interpretation of legal documents, or in researching and uncovering the many ways that people tried to cheat one another.
Fritillary Reedling, this time you’ve asked too much.
At her side Peregrine said, “I’ve never been on a barge. In fact, I’ve never been on a boat, only a winch-ferry.”
“Perie, I think in the next month or two you are going to do a lot of things you’ve never done before.”
There was only one person on the wharf, other than a handful of bargees seeing to the loading: an old man, leaning on a walking stick and wrapped up against the night-time cold. By the light from the lantern beside him, he looked frail.
“Oh, beggar me speechless, is that Secretary Barden?” she muttered. “You shouldn’t be here,” she told him as they stepped on to the wharf and the guards dispersed to block public access to the dock. “And alone, too.”
He gave a smile. “Ah, Agent Brantheld, this is the very hour when I can’t sleep, and the aches and pains beg to be gently eased into their daily routine.”
“The Pontifect sent you?”
“Indeed no. She would be quite annoyed with me if she knew.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To ease your mind, perhaps. To offer my advice, for what it is worth.”
“I could certainly do with plenty of that.”
“First, why don’t you get this young lad settled into a bunk on the barge? Then we will chat while the barge captain waits for the tide to turn. I believe there is at least half an hour yet.”
She did as he suggested, and when she came back up on deck it was to find Barden propped up against a bollard waiting for her. Without any more preliminaries, he said, “You really must stop worrying about the Pontifect. She is quite capable of looking after herself.”
“Those lancers up in the hills aren’t going to go away. There will be other assassins, too.”
“She knows that. Proctor, have faith in her. If the danger becomes too great, she will abandon the Pontifical Palace in order to save Vavala. She has been marshalling our defences.”
She sat down on an upturned wooden bucket next to him. “Defences?”
“It’s odd, but people without witchery always underestimate witchery power, simply because witchery is almost never misused.”
“You have a witchery?”
“No, but I do have the wisdom that comes with having lived through some bad times. And my memory tells me this much: what is out in the world now, this blackness, this pitch that Peregrine talks about–it’s always been here, all my life anyway, just not so obvious or so widespread. So if you’re looking for its origin you have to go a long way back. I am looking through all the records we have in Vavala, but I think it would be more rewarding to look through those in Lowmeer.”
“Those were the Pontifect’s instructions too, but where do I start, apart from Fox’s family? I gather they were originally Lowmian.”
“Start there, by all means. I think you should also look hard at Dire Sweepers.”
“The Pontifect mentioned them. I had the impression they were fighting on our side, in charge of eliminating the Horned Death!”
“She has her reasons, doubtless, but I am telling you, look into the Dire Sweepers. Saker thought they should be investigated, too. He thinks their allotted task is twofold: to murder twins at birth and to kill people suffering from the Horned Death. Saker met a man who could well be their leader.”
“And his name?”
“Saker couldn’t recall it. He only remembered that the man was noble and he often came to the University in Grundorp to oversee his family’s patronage of that institution. Saker met him when he was a student. Which, I believe, was when you were a student there too. You may have known this fellow, as well. He’d be in his late forties now, if he’s still alive. Saker said that in their last encounter, the man had a knife thrown into his back. He might have died.”
“There were a number of university patrons, but it shouldn’t be difficult to find out which one. Why didn’t the Pontifect tell me all that?”
He stood up, shrugging. “I’ve no idea. And now I must be off before the crowds are about in the streets.”
And that, she knew, was all she was going to get out of him. He had come down to the wharf for the sole purpose of giving her the information that would encourage her to find the leader of the Dire Sweepers. And in so doing, he had also let her know that Fritillary Reedling probably knew that name already–and hadn’t passed it on.
“I think you are very wicked old man, Secretary Barden,” she said.
“And I trust your discretion.” With that remark, he picked up his lantern and hobbled away, leaning heavily on his stick.
Fritillary Reedling watched the barge leave the dock from the window of her workroom. As soon as it disappeared into the mists rising off the river, she left the room and headed out of the palace, conspicuously trailed by two of her guards.
She walked briskly, heading for the city’s main oak shrine. The oak itself was the oldest and largest in all Vavala; in fact, many said it was the oldest to be found anywhere in the Va-cherished Hemisphere. Its massive main trunk was anchored not just by its roots, but also by branches that drooped from high in the heart of the tree to rest on the ground. Any one of these branches would have dwarfed the trunk of a normal oak. Above, the vast canopy
spread its crown of leaves as high as the roof of the Pontifical Palace.
Over the centuries, shrine keepers had encouraged the growth of stray branches into a labyrinth of rooms with living walls and latticed ceilings of limbs and twigs. Acolytes came from all over the hemisphere to study here, just as shrine keepers came to impart their knowledge. The school, if it could be called that, was informal, ever changing as people came and went. It was said that the shrine had many unseen guardians and it was their presence that ensured order and continuity.
Fritillary halted briefly at the edge of the shade from the oak. “Wait here,” she said to her guards. She ducked her head under a low spray of fresh spring growth and stood for a moment to give her eyes time to adjust to the reduced light.
Taking a deep breath, she lowered her head to look at the back of her hand.
When she raised her gaze, Akrana the shrine keeper was standing before her. No one was sure if Akrana, had once been a man or a woman; it was no longer important. Age had wrinkled and withered and twisted the keeper into a figure that was barely recognisable as human. Once Akrana must have been abnormally tall because now, even shortened by time, the rheumy eyes were still level with Fritillary’s own.
“He has marked ye as an enemy.” The voice that issued from between thin bloodless lips was surprisingly forceful. “Prime Valerian Fox.”
Fritillary nodded.
“The so-called mark of A’Va.”
She nodded again.
“There was a time afore, when there was no recognition of the existence of Va, and therefore no A’Va. The smutch had a different name then.”
“Which was?”
“I was not on this soil then, but as a child I heared a elder shrine keeper given it name. The mark of hexer.”
“Hexer?”
“I believe ye’d call such ‘sorcerer’ nowadays. Valerian was never of the oak. Bad times are a-coming, Fritillary Reedling. He can track ye now, through that mark. Ye must prepare your sanctuary so he know not where you hide. Ye must also hide the oaks… Keep them safe.”
She felt overwhelming despair. “How?”
Akrana gestured her deeper inside the shrine. “Ask the unseen guardians. Perhaps… perhaps they know. I do not.”
13
Obviation
“I don’t understand, Lady Friselda.”
Mathilda glanced down the room to where her gaggle of ladies-in-waiting were all gathered at the other end near the warmth of the fire, then fixed her most imperious stare on the old lady seated next to her in the window embrasure of the Regala’s retiring room. It was a look that intimidated most people, but it never had much effect on the wretched woman who was her ward’s-dame. Lady Friselda was far too entrenched in her privileged position as cousin to the Regal to be intimidated, and her power at court was real; she appointed all Mathilda’s Lowmian ladies-in-waiting.
“Moreover, surely it is my decision,” she added with as much acid as she could inject into the words, “to decide Aureen’s future?”
“Oh, nonsense, my dear! Why would the disposition of a mere chambermaid be any concern of a Regala?”
“Because she came here as part of my retinue and she is the only remaining member of it!”
“Sweet child, why would you possibly care?” The old lady raised a single eyebrow in ridicule. “An uneducated under-servant is of no import to anyone, least of all you. If the Regal wishes her to be returned to Ardrone, as a symbol of your absorption into our Lowmian court and the cutting of your final tie to Ardrone, then of course she must go home.”
Pox on you, you condescending bitch! She smiled sweetly. “Well, of course, if it is the Regal’s wish, then so be it. I shall speak to him concerning the matter.”
“Do that, my dear,” Friselda said equably. “I believe His Grace has been influenced by the continued inquiry into that saucy light-fingered female you brought to court as your handmaiden. His Grace’s agents, you see, are convinced that Aureen must know something she is not saying about the theft of his valuable fan. After all, put two lower-class Ardronese servants together–of course they must have been in each other’s confidence. A disgrace that they were ever introduced to this court! I cannot imagine the upbringing that you must have endured in Throssel, my dear. I blame the early demise of your mother. How else can you have come under the influence of such baseborn ser vants?”
She tried not to grit her teeth. “So kind of you to be concerned. But I assure you, I have never been under their influence. And I consider the insinuation insulting.”
“Oh, dear, my apologies for disturbing your sensitivities. Anyway, ’tis no further concern of yours. I believe dear Vilmar’s agents will deal with Aureen before she is sent home, just to make sure they have all the information they can get.”
“Agents?” She swallowed convulsively. Va above. Not the Dire Sweepers.
“His Grace has many agents to take care of the dishonest and the traitorous. Nothing you need worry your pretty head about, my dear.”
Oh, how she itched to put her hands around that scrawny woman’s neck and choke the life out of her, but her anger warred with dread. If the Dire Sweepers seized Aureen the moment she left the protection of the court, she would never reach Ardrone. They’d torture her–and they weren’t interested in the theft of a fan. They wanted to know about the baby Sorrel was carrying…
“Thank you, Lady Friselda. I will talk to the Regal about this matter. And I will inform Aureen myself. I am sure she is innocent of all wrongdoing.” Not trusting herself to say another word, she turned and left the room, leaving her startled ladies-in-waiting to follow or not as they pleased.
That evening, when they were seated together at supper and other guests were diverted by the entertainment, Mathilda raised the subject with Vilmar. As soon as she mentioned Aureen’s name, she saw the furrow between his greying eyebrows twitch and deepen. Her heart sank; she knew that sign. He was displeased with her in a way that no cajoling would dissipate. He’d made up his mind.
“My lady,” he said, his glower matching the sharpness of his tone, “you foolishly involve yourself in matters beyond your ability to comprehend. Do not mistake my motives here. I am indifferent to the fate of servants. One of your women, that handmaiden with the Shenat name, was evidently involved in a sorcerous attempt to influence my decisions through an unnatural artefact from the Va-forsaken Hemisphere.”
He reached out to take her by the wrist with his long, bony fingers. As he continued to speak, his hold tightened. “I need to know the truth of this matter, and I will go to any lengths to find it. It is the opinion of my informants that your maid, this Aureen, may know more than she has admitted. She shall be dealt with accordingly. Do not attempt to interfere, or I shall doubt your loyalty.” His hold was like a vice, bruising her skin and paining her to the bone. “I have not dismissed the possibility that this was a plot on the part of your father, Edwayn.”
That had to be a silly attempt at bluff. “It was not my father who gave you the plumes you now so fear.” She could have pointed out the obvious, that it was his own Lowmian trading partner, Uthen Kesleer, but there was no point. Instead, she said, “If it was indeed Sorrel Redwing who stole the plumes–and there is no proof whatever that she was ever in your solar, let alone that she knew or cared about the plumes–then surely she did you a favour!”
They glared at each other and she wondered if they’d just moved into a new phase of their pointless marriage. He had his full faculties back, but perhaps he would never forgive her for having seen him at his most vulnerable.
“True.” He lessened his grip slightly. “Which is the only reason I have not taken this any further before now. But my informants press me on this matter, so I will see your maid questioned. After that she will be sent on her way to Throssel.”
“As you wish,” she said tonelessly and he let go of her. “Why have you not arrested Uthen Kesleer?”
“He says he had no idea of what the plumes could do.”
And perhaps he didn’t… but the real truth is that some men are too powerful and too rich to throw into a dungeon. And you never did tell the Dire Sweepers or anyone else the whole truth about the plumes, did you?
And then she had another thought. None of that worried Regal Vilmar half as much as not knowing who had the plumes now, and what they intended to do with them.
Saker had said he had them, which presumably meant they were now in the hands of the Pontificate, because she couldn’t imagine he’d risk stealing them for anyone else. If ever she was in dire trouble herself, perhaps she could use that information to bargain her way out.
The Lord Chancellor stepped up then, with his tiresome wife, and the evening dragged on. She said all the right things, smiled at the right times, but the thoughts inside her head circled, and always they came to the same conclusions.
Aureen had been petrified of the men who had questioned her. Hours afterwards, her face had still been unnaturally white; her hands had still trembled. Her eyes had begged for reassurance, for a promise that she would be safe under Mathilda’s protection.
I can’t give her that promise.
And they will come for her.
“Ouch! Do be careful, Aureen. I do believe you pulled some of my hair out then.”
“Oh, forgive me, milady.” Aureen, looking suitably contrite, untangled the hairbrush and resumed her brushing.
Mathilda hid a sigh. Her worries had niggled at her all day, like burrs in her stockings, and it was pointless to take it out on Aureen. The truth was that she was still trying to decide what to do.
“Is there something the matter, milady?” Aureen asked. “You seem to have the megrims tonight.”
She didn’t answer.
“Oh, milady, I’m ever so sorry. I shouldn’t pry. But I know Ustgrind is so… dismal, and folk here are sometimes solemn enough to sour a jug of beer! And milady’s been missing Sorrel. But you have the Prince-regal, the little sweetling. I’d wish I could see more of him, but Lady Friselda says it’s not ’propriate for a maid like me to have anything to do with a royal heir, for all that I brought him into the world, the darling wee mite.”