The Book of Forbidden Wisdom

by Gillian Murray Kendall

  “Hurry, Angel,” said Silky.

  I bent my head to the task and kept reading.

  Jan Creepow transferred land to Lord Hastings.

  Lady Juliet married Egg Morton, who signed with an X.

  There was a clamor outside.

  “They’ve left the door,” said Trey.

  I turned another page. And here I stumbled on something that, had it been known, would have outraged all the Great Houses of Arcadia. It was a signed marriage contract—­a full contract—­between Pea and Karn of the House of Nesson.

  This was all wrong. Pea was pre-­contracted to the House of Nesson, yes—­to Leth’s brother—­but she was only six, six years too young to marry, to have a full contract. It was cruelty—­barbarism. No wonder the Nessons had kept the contract hidden.

  I began to see that Arcadia was rife with secret marriages and alliances; they ran like skeins of wool through the fabric of the country. They held Arcadia together. No wonder this knowledge was forbidden.

  But where was the wisdom in The Book of Forbidden Wisdom?

  I turned another page.

  And there was the House of Montrose. Gwen Pan married Lord Kestling Montrose.

  Lord Kestling was my father.

  But who was Gwen Pan?

  In a small hand below the marriage contract, someone had written in code, “Kalo, newly born to Gwen Kestling five months later. Lord Kestling keeps the child.” The words were in a black square, as if they were somehow important.

  And, indeed, they were.

  I looked up at my father. For a moment I felt pity for Kalo. He was the son of Gwen Pan, whoever she was. Gwen Pan had brought two things to her wedding with my father: a mountain covered in rich timber, and someone else’s child inside her.

  Kalo existed to torment us all because my father had once shown charity and let a baby live. And I couldn’t condemn my father for that.

  But what had happened to Gwen Pan? Everyone knew of my father’s marriage to my mother. The story was legendary—­the Bards still sang of it. The ceremony had lasted three days, and extraordinary amounts of food and drink had been consumed. Whole oxen. Songbirds inside ducks inside turkeys inside great white geese that dripped vast amounts of savory fat into the fire as they rotated on the spit. Skin artists not only decorated the bride and groom but also painted the signs of the House of Montrose and the House of St. Clare onto the hands of the guests. The men and women danced, separately, throughout the night. At midnight, the greatest display of fireworks ever seen in Arcadia exploded in showers of white fire. And finally the wedding ­couple was put to bed.

  No mention of Gwen Pan.

  I turned the page.

  Fewer documents. More things scribbled directly onto the page. In places there were small sketches next to the writing. I read carefully, and, this time, when I realized what I was reading, I went back to the top of the page and began again.

  I didn’t want to believe this document, this text that lay open on the lectern in front of me. I wished I had never opened The Book.

  But one cannot unread something; I knew that better than anyone. For the first time, I felt the curse of my eidetic memory. My mother had understood the curse when she had turned away from The Book before finishing it. And yet—­and yet she had made very sure that I would be trained up to read The Book of Forbidden Wisdom. She had left it to me to weigh and measure and use the power of The Book.

  Across time and space, the names called to me.

  Cor.

  Jane Upton.

  Pea.

  Jan Creepow.

  Egg Morton.

  Gwen Pan.

  So I did it. I turned the page.

  There were sketches on this page. I touched the picture of a coarse-­looking woman with lank dark hair. Her face had been drawn carefully, and the eyes looked bleary. There were small earrings in her ears, and I found that detail moving. It was as if, in some small way, she had tried to make herself pretty. I was drawn to that face again and again because I recognized it.

  Of course I did.

  It was as if Kalo had been staring up at me from the page. It was with no sense of surprise that I saw the name scribbled into The Book: Gwen Pan. But this entry concerned no transfer of land, no secret marriage.

  Like all the other documents and entries on these pages, this was a certificate of death.

  The cause was written in red letters.

  Gwen Pan had been born; she had grown; she had married my father in secret and transferred all her land to him. She had given birth to Kalo.

  And then she had been murdered.

  If it had not been for the baby she had left in my father’s care, it would have been as if Gwen Pan had never existed.

  The crime committed against Gwen Pan was, in the end, more complete than murder. She and her name had been disappeared.

  I looked again at the coarse, large-­featured face and the lank hair. Cleaned up, she might not have looked much different from any number of Great House scions. I was beginning to lose my sense of the vast difference between a member of a Great House and a vagabond.

  So Gwen Pan had been murdered, and sometime after, my father had married my beautiful, vivacious and charming auburn-­haired mother. He had first married Gwen Pan’s timber and, then, his House no longer poor, he had managed a match with the richest heiress in Arcadia. My father, even with Gwen Pan’s holdings, did not have enough land alone to marry her, but there was, it was whispered, affection on the Lady’s side. And so he took in contract my mother, the last of the House of St. Clare. The only woman alive who could read The Book of Forbidden Wisdom.

  He couldn’t have known what was in The Book.

  I didn’t really need to turn another page of The Book of Forbidden Wisdom, but I did anyway.

  Cor—­murdered.

  Jane Upton—­murdered.

  Jan Creepow—­murdered.

  Egg Morton—­murdered.

  And other names I recognized from my perusal of the earlier pages—­murdered.

  I was almost at the end of The Book. I read, and as I did, my face must have been transformed. Finally I reached what I thought was the last page. Only a few words were on it. I almost didn’t bother turning it over—­and had I not, I wouldn’t have seen the ragged edge of paper that indicated a subsequent page had been torn from The Book.

  “They’re coming,” said Silky.

  “Stay behind me,” my father said to Silky.

  “Trey and I will deal with this,” said Renn. I looked up sharply.

  “Have you finished reading The Book, Angel?” asked Trey.

  “I’ve got it all,” I said.

  And then, without a hint that he might be doing something untoward, Trey took my hand and pulled me away from the lectern. Renn narrowed his eyes.

  “Lord Trey—­“ began my father, and even Silky’s eyebrows were raised by the sight of Trey and me hand in hand, but my father never completed his sentence. Perhaps he thought better of it.

  They were at the door again.

  “Come on, Renn,” said Trey, and the two of them blocked the door with their bodies. A second later, and our father, Lord Kestling, was with them.

  “This is it,” said Renn.

  I wondered if death were upon me, and I wondered if I would be with Silky, Trey and Renn in the quiet country. But I had just awakened, and I didn’t want to go back to sleep.

  An axe stroke cleaved through the upper part of the door and narrowly missed cleaving Renn’s arm.

  I wanted to live, and if I lived, I would be heard by all of them—­Great Houses, vagabonds, bards. It would be known. The secrets of The Book would be known. The Great Houses were built on land greed, on theft, on land transfers from ignominious, secret marriages. The Great Houses were built on the sweat and tears and lives of vagabon
ds.

  The Great Houses were built on blood.

  Chapter Thirty-­Two

  A Reunion

  Trey and Renn weren’t going to be able to hold the door much longer. Already they had to stand to either side of it as the great axe blows came through the wood. They could only hope to cut down our enemies—­Leth, Kalo, the freemen—­as they came through the threshold.

  My father watched as the door began to splinter.

  “Stop, Kalo,” he yelled, “I order you. Lord Leth—­the Arbitrator made us allies. The documents will be void, and you’ll lose the penalty.”

  “They’re beyond that,” I said. “I don’t think Leth cares about the penalty anymore.”

  A piece flew out of the door.

  “Leth always had a bad look about him,” said my father.

  “You loved Leth,” I said. “You adored his acres, his meadows, his mines and timber. Leth was just fine by you.”

  And once, what seemed like so long ago, I had thought Leth was fine enough too.

  The door was almost down.

  “Trey,” said Renn. “Get ready.”

  And the axe ploughed through the door a last time.

  We didn’t have a chance. I pushed a protesting Silky behind me as Renn and Trey prepared to take down at least the first man to step through the door.

  I heard my father draw his sword.

  “Get ready,” he said. “Angel, you have The Book—­you have to get out if you can, if there’s a lull in the fighting.”

  “I won’t let them get to her,” said Trey.

  “We can’t be taken,” said my father. “Or we die badly. We make our stand here. Silky, we’ll probably go down first—­you’re going to have to fight to the end. I’m sorry.”

  And that’s when I saw that Silky had found a bolt somewhere and was carefully fitting it to her crossbow.

  “For heaven’s sake, Father,” she said. “I’m not a baby.”

  The door was only an empty standing frame now. There was a moment’s silence. As if in slow motion, dust and fragments of wood swirled in a single beam of light that came from a high window.

  We all waited.

  The air cleared; we could just make out two figures, one with the axe.

  One spoke to the other.

  “If you think I’m just going to walk into the room, you’re wrong.” The words were measured, but there was a quaver in the voice.

  “You’re not exactly terrifying the enemy by saying that,” said the one with the axe. The voice was light and easy, ironic and very familiar.

  I stepped forward; Trey automatically gestured me back, but I pushed ahead of him.

  “Zinda.” I held out my arms.

  “Zinda?” Silky leapt forward, tripped, and sent a bolt into the wall. It didn’t seem the time to make a point of it.

  “Angel?” A head poked in, and then Zinda stepped through. “And Golden Hair?” She embraced me.

  “We’re all here,” I said. “And my father as well.”

  Zinda and the other figure at the door relaxed visibly. “You might have identified yourselves more clearly,” Zinda said. “We couldn’t hear you, and getting down that door was seriously hard work. We thought you were the last of the bad lot and were hiding—­and we didn’t want you coming up behind us when we left.” Then she gave up the pose of a warrior and put down the axe, and I embraced her all over again. And then I hugged Lark, who was staring at all of us in disbelief.

  “We didn’t know what was behind the door,” Lark said. “I thought perhaps it might be death.”

  “Seems not,” said Zinda. “And it looks like this lot felt the same way. Last stand?”

  “Last stand.”

  “You all right, Golden Hair?”

  Silky lowered her now bolt-­less bow and nodded.

  “Bard?”

  “Here.”

  “Faceless Trey?”

  “Present.”

  While I didn’t like her use of the word faceless, she had called him by his name; she must have grown to like him a great deal.

  “You don’t look so faceless anymore, Trey,” Zinda said.

  “Perhaps not,” said Trey.

  Zinda just stared at my father until he began to look uncomfortable.

  “I’m Lord Kestling of Montrose,” he said. She looked blank. “I’m the father of Silky and Angel.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Zinda. ”A father.”

  I laughed. Then I held her at arm’s length and looked her in the face. There were deep lines where there had been none, and her hair was flecked with grey. She would not be the same again. Not after Caro. And I began to have a hint at what I was getting into with all this feeling business.

  “Why did you come?” I asked.

  “We finished off the ‘Lidans,” said Zinda. “Then we had some more guests. Two women, one of whom I knew—­Niamh of Shibbeth—­came through. After that, men came looking for you; they said they were your kindred. We let them pass. But then I began to think we had done the wrong thing.”

  “And then you had to rescue me again,” said Silky. She sounded despondent.

  Zinda spoke gently. “I think you did well, Silky,” she said. “To make it so far. To survive for so long. And you’ve done your own share of rescuing.”

  And Silky smiled. For a girl who had been about to fight to her death, she looked remarkably cheerful.

  “But where’s Leth?” I asked. “And the others?”

  “That odious Leth,” said Zinda, “is in our custody. As is your odious brother, Kalo. You have a number of unpleasant male associates.”

  “Hey!” said Trey.

  She ignored him. “We had to take down three freemen and one indentured servant. I feel bad about the servant, but he left us no choice.”

  “Large man?”

  “With a bloody face.”

  “I’m sorry for that.”

  “Come,” said Zinda. “You need cool water and good food. And the others from the village will want to see you.”

  “You fought the dark riders without knowing we were here?”

  “They attacked,” said Zinda. “We fought. Although when I think about it, I should have known we’d find you. Trouble follows you around.” I was about to protest, but she simply smiled. “And so does luck.”

  With that, we left behind the blood soaked room of The Book. Zinda and Lark led us to an open courtyard behind one of the dilapidated buildings.

  “Lark found this place,” she said.

  I recognized many of the women who were there. I had carted rocks with them, built fortifications and brought down the attacking ‘Lidans. I felt I knew them in a way I didn’t know the ­people I had called friends while growing up. These were more like family. Like sisters. Silky moved easily among them, checking to see if the archers remembered the new stance she had taught them right before the attack, asking after women she had known but didn’t see there, shedding tears at bad news.

  I lacked her touch, but I sat, and Lark brought me water and cucumbers and dried meat (I remembered the ‘Lidan horse that had been slaughtered), and we ate our food together, and Lark told me all that had happened after we had left. I didn’t know where Trey and Renn were, but I knew that they would be well cared for.

  “After you left, Zinda fought to recover Caro’s body,” said Lark. “It was a foolish chance, but none of us dared stop her. She took that axe she carries now and hacked her way through. When she returned she was all blood, but she had Caro’s body in her arms. I tried to speak to her, but she turned away from me. The others were too afraid to approach her.”

  “Is she—­” I paused. “Is she all right?”

  “We buried Caro that night,” said Lark. “It seemed to help. But no, I don’t think she’s all right. They were like the closest of sisters
.”

  After Lark said that, I couldn’t bear to think about it.

  In the afternoon, as I stood with Trey and watched, Zinda released the freemen after first taking their weapons and then confiscating most of their horses.

  One of them made as if to complain, but she cut him off short.

  “Call it the spoils of war,” said Zinda. “You attacked us without provocation, and, in return, we’re giving you your lives and freedom. If I were you, I’d call it even.” And even the freeman’s companions shouted him down, glad to get away with their lives.

  That evening we moved out of the Spiral City and made camp in the meadow beyond. Six women guarded Kalo and Leth, and any two of them could have taken the men down. I was not likely to underestimate the women of The Village of Broken Women ever again.

  Renn sang as the evening drew in. I could tell nothing of what he was thinking by the songs that he chose. Some of them were comic songs; some were ballads, and he sang the lay of the Great Lady and the Invisible Mountain, perhaps in honor of our hosts. Trey and Silky and I sat toward the back. I was moody, and after Renn made me both laugh and cry, Trey got up stiffly.

  “It’s time we both faced it,” he said to me.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve fallen in love with Renn,” he said. “Can we just say it now?”

  “Oh no,” said Silky.

  “Please stop, Trey,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Renn is different and dark and interesting,” I said. “Is that what you want to hear?”

  “No. I don’t really want to hear. And I wish I didn’t know.”

  “Trey,” said Silky, “don’t be obtuse.” She was proud of her vocabulary.

  “Sit down,” I said, and at first he kept stubbornly on his feet. “Trey—­please sit down.”

  Perhaps he was startled at my “please,” or perhaps he was just tired of standing, but Trey sat.

  “Renn’s a bard,” I explained carefully. “He’s also—­attractive. I’m attracted to him. That’s all.”

  “That’s enough. It’s pretty obvious what’s going on with me, though, isn’t it?” said Trey. “I’m assuming the way I feel is no longer some kind of big secret.”