Canticle poi-2

by Ken Scholes

  I am your Bloodletter.

  “Save us from what?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Ourselves.” She turned a crank and he felt himself turning, tipping slightly down so that he had a full view of the cutting tables below. Suddenly, her mouth was near his ear. “Now this is going to hurt, Vlad. A lot.”

  He gritted his teeth. “If you’re going to cut me, cut me.”

  She laughed. “I will. But first I need you to feel something for me.”

  “What do you need me to feel?”

  Ria smiled. “Despair.”

  She clapped, and down below, a door opened. Robed men led a young, naked man, and Vlad Li Tam knew him.

  It was Ru, the thirteenth son of Vlad’s twentieth. Thirty years old last month, he realized. The men brought him to the table, and though the young man was silent, the terror was evident upon his face. As they began strapping him down, Vlad Li Tam opened his mouth to shout.

  Ria placed a hand over his mouth. “You are here to listen,” she said, “not to speak.” She removed her hand at his nod. “And you are here to watch.” Here, her smile widened. “Close your eyes even once and I will cut away your eyelids.”

  Vlad Li Tam swallowed and forced his eyes to those of his grandson. He watched bravery ignite in the young man’s eyes, and he nodded once, slowly. Courage, he willed.

  And it seemed as if the eyes shouted back love.

  The cutter, robed in crimson, approached the table.

  Carefully, he selected his first knife, and Vlad Li Tam felt his heart pound in his temples and smelled iron mixed with his own cold sweat. Courage. But this time, he intended the words for himself.

  The cutter started his work, and Vlad Li Tam watched, his eyes never leaving his grandson’s, even when the screaming started, even when the body shook and jumped as the blood-catchers filled beneath the cutting knives.

  Time moved past him, slow and heavy and loud.

  He watched and swallowed the sobs that overcame him, tasting the salt of his tears as they rolled down his cheeks and into his open mouth. His father had taught him some measure of detachment for their family’s work in the Named Lands, and that skill had served him when it came to sending his children out like arrows to find their mark in the world. He’d sacrificed hundreds of lives, most from his own family.

  But here, he made no difficult sacrifice to lay the foundation of some great intrigue or strategy-here, he had no decision to make whatsoever. It was a matter of keeping his eyes upon his grandson and watching him twist and buck against the blades.

  “Why are you doing this?” he finally asked.

  Ria clapped, and below, the surgeon lowered his knife. She leaned toward him. “I told you. I am redeeming your kinship. I am paying for salvation with blood.”

  Vlad Li Tam stared down at his grandson and realized his mouth was moving. “What do you want from me? Do you want information? Do you want money?”

  Her laughter was an upbeat song set to a minor key. “No, not at all. I do not lie to you, Vlad. All that is required of you is that you watch and listen.” She paused. “I told you it would hurt.”

  What is he saying? Vlad leaned against the straps, feeling them bite into his flesh as he strained himself to hear the son of his son. The voice was low and it burbled. His mouth foamed pink.

  “Give him water,” Ria ordered, and a black-robed man stepped forward with a cup even as the cutter retreated to wipe his knife clean and select another from the table.

  The words took shape, and Vlad Li Tam’s sob shook a cry from his lips though he worked hard not to let it.

  Not having the option of writing it out, his grandson now offered up his last words there beneath his grandfather’s tortured stare.

  It was a poem of honor and sacrifice composed in blood and pain.

  Vlad Li Tam felt the hot tears coursing his cheeks, heard their pattering upon the floor. He forced their eyes to meet and he kept watching, even after the cutter returned his latest knife, even after Ru Li Tam’s eyes rolled back in his skull from the pain of its touch, even after the poem had once more become a shriek.

  Later-hours later, it seemed-when the boy was still and quiet, Ria smiled. “Tomorrow,” she said, “we should have time for three.”

  Vlad Li Tam heard a croak and realized it was his own voice. He swallowed at the dryness in his mouth and tried again. “Cut me instead.”

  “Oh,” she said, glancing to her table of knives, “I will in due time, Vlad.”

  I want you to feel something for me. Vlad Li Tam tried to look away from the lifeless body there on the table. He’d felt it on the dock, but already it had taken a new hold upon him. He felt it growing.

  Despair.

  Vlad Li Tam did not feel the hands that unstrapped him from the table and caught him when he fell. He was only vaguely aware of the men who carried him back to his room to place him on the floor near the door.

  All he saw was the mouth of his dead grandson moving slowly, repeating the lines of the poem he’d composed beneath the knife.

  Weeping, Vlad Li Tam repeated the words back to himself and kept doing so through the night, curled into a ball with his fist against his mouth. He lay there reciting the poem until the chime sounded the next morning.

  Then the men arrived to bear Vlad Li Tam into another day.

  Petronus

  Petronus hung to the edges of the crowded market and meditated to retain his calm. Esarov’s men stood near him, and he saw uniformed Entrolusian soldiers at the far end of the square. Commerce hummed and buzzed around them.

  He’d looked for Grymlis but had not seen him. When the time had come to leave, it was predawn and he’d not had the heart to wake him. They’d ridden to the city and waited for noon in the basement of an inn near the docks.

  Now, they waited for the signal-a red scarf waved from a rooftop. When they saw it, they looked to the balcony two buildings over and Petronus’s breath caught in his throat.

  Standing calmly between two soldiers was a familiar man, older to be sure but well preserved in the thirty years since Petronus had last seen him. Petronus nodded to the man beside him. “Yes,” he said. “It’s Charles, to be sure.”

  Above them, a blue scarf waved.

  They waited another three minutes, and then the man to his right touched his shoulder. “It’s time.”

  Petronus looked up and chose his path through the crowded square. With a glance to the men beside him, he took a deep breath and set out, his eyes planted firmly on the far side of the market. As he moved slowly, he found himself wondering exactly how everything would play out from this moment forward. Until now, he’d had some voice in the matter, but once he passed Charles, once he gave himself over into the hands of Erlund’s men, Petronus knew that his voice would be muted. It would be Esarov and Erlund’s game now.

  He saw the balding crown of Charles’s head bobbing its way through the crowd, moving toward him at a leisurely pace. When they made eye contact, it was like lightning striking twice.

  From afar, Charles appeared to have aged well, but up close, he was haggard and worn down. He weighed fifty stones less than he should, and though his clothes were new, they were ill fitting upon him. As he approached, the Arch-Engineer scowled and Petronus watched his hands.

  This was a foolish trade, Father, Charles signed once the crowd parted enough for them to see one another.

  Petronus inclined his head slightly. Perhaps, he answered. Are you well?

  They met in the middle and briefly embraced. “I am as well as I can be,” Charles whispered. Petronus heard heavy emotion in the man’s voice and wondered exactly how the time had gone. Charles had been Sethbert’s prisoner first, and that could not have been easy. And Ignatio, Erlund’s new spymaster, had a reputation for cruelty though his master seemed more civilized.

  Petronus released him. “Rudolfo is coming for you,” he said. “He can be trusted as you trust me.”

  Charles nodded. “Did my messages get out?”


  Petronus looked up. Ahead, the guards were craning their heads above the crowd, keeping watch on the two old men. “At least one did,” he said, then his hands moved. Is it true? Is Sanctorum Lux what I think it is?

  His answer was a simple gesture. Yes.

  The guards were moving into the crowd now, slowly, and Petronus resisted the urge to question Charles further. His words tumbled out now even as he steeled himself for the rest of his walk across the market. “You serve the Gypsy King now, Charles,” he said in a low voice. His hands pressed a final message into the man’s shoulder. Serve him well; preserve the light.

  He thought for a moment that he saw tears in the old Arch-Engineer’s eyes, but he didn’t look closely enough. He didn’t want to know.

  Instead, he willed his feet to carry him forward and willed his heart not to be afraid. If Esarov’s scheme worked, he’d be free soon enough. If it didn’t, he’d find that reckoning he had expected to face.

  He pushed past Charles and into the crowd, carefully rehearsing his lines. The soldiers met him, and each took an elbow with firm hands, escorting him that last twenty steps. Lysias waited for him, his face dark with worry.

  “General,” Petronus said with a nod. “It’s been a while.” He’d last seen the man during the parley that finalized peace following Resolute’s suicide and Sethbert’s removal from power.

  Lysias blinked at him, and Petronus wondered if he reached for a fitting title before finally giving up. “It’s not safe here,” he finally said, dropping any need for an honorific. “We need to go.”

  Petronus smiled. “One moment,” he said. Then, he pulled himself up to full height and turned toward the crowd. Already, the soldiers on each arm tugged at him, and he shook off their hands violently as he raised his voice over the square.

  “Hear me,” he shouted. “I am Petronus, last true son of P’Andro Whym and last Pope of the Androfrancine Order, reigning King of Windwir.” He saw Lysias’s look of surprise out of the corner of his eye and wondered if the general had truly thought Petronus would vanish silently and willingly into one of Ignatio’s many basements. He also saw the confusion upon the soldiers’ faces as they looked to their leader for direction, but this was not his intended audience. He turned and took in the openmouthed, wide-eyed stares of the people in the market. Their voices died down as they took in the old man in his simple, travel-worn robes. “I am Petronus,” he shouted again, “and I give myself willingly into the hands of your Overseer, invoking my rights by monarchy.”

  He opened his mouth to shout again, but now the hands were firm upon his elbows and he was being steered-nearly dragged-out of the crowded square and toward a waiting wagon.

  Lysias drew alongside him, his face red. “This was supposed to be a quiet affair.”

  Petronus smiled. “You’ll forgive me for spoiling your silence.” Behind him, he knew Esarov’s men were already spiriting Charles away through a series of alleys and windows and basements. He would be out of the city by nightfall and under Rudolfo’s protection in two days’ time if all went according to plan.

  After that, Sanctorum Lux awaited.

  The firm hands were now lifting him up into the wagon and closing the iron-reinforced doors. Most of the market now watched, and Petronus felt pleased with himself.

  So far, he thought, things were off to as good a start as they could be.

  Leaning back into the cushioned bench, Petronus closed his eyes and willed the rest of their plan to go as smoothly. But even then, as he tried to lay out the strategy and imagine the events that were coming, he found his mind pulled again and again toward Rudolfo and Charles and Sanctorum Lux.

  Where was it? Who had built it? Was it safe?

  The questions rolled on even as the windowless carriage bumped its way down cobblestone streets, turning left here and right there, until passing through the gates and picking up speed on the open highway.

  Petronus found the carriage jostling him into a light sleep. In it, he dreamed of miles and miles of books-old and new-stretching out for as far as the eye could see. And Neb was there, grinning like a wolverine, alongside Charles and Rudolfo and Isaak.

  I am not in my own dream, Petronus realized.

  But then again, he didn’t need to be.

  He only needed to know that the light was in such capable hands.

  Chapter 15

  Winters

  Winters sat beneath the guttering lamp and pored over another volume from the Book of Dreaming Kings. Since her meeting with Ezra nearly a week before, she’d given as much of herself as she could spare to the long, winding row of shelves that stretched back to their earliest days in the Named Lands.

  She’d started with the volumes that her grandfather had added, written down from his dreams with meticulous care, and now she read her father’s. So far, she’d found nothing, but she wasn’t sure exactly why she looked. The old man had told her that the book hadn’t changed until Windwir fell.

  During my reign. Still, something in her longed for some clue, anything, that would negate his words or expand upon them. She replayed them again and again, and each time she saw the white lines of a scar upon his chest that was easily older than she was. Whoever Ezra was, he’d taken the mark of House Y’Zir a goodly while ago-when her father still lived. And her father had seen the fall of Windwir in his dreams, though the old man’s scar could well have been older than even that visitation.

  Winters shuddered to think the cutting went back even farther.

  She heard a low whistle and looked up.

  Seamus, the oldest of her Council of Twelve, approached. Even in the dim light, his face was drawn and pale. “My queen,” he said in a low voice, “we are at alarm.”

  She stood quickly, closing the book she read. “What is it?”

  “We’ve received birds from the Summer Papal Palace,” he said. “They are under attack.”

  “By whom?” The Papal Palace was under Gypsy protection, populated now by a few hundred Androfrancine refugees who had chosen not to make their way to the Ninefold Forest. She blew out her lamp and joined him at the entrance of the cavern that housed the book.

  His mouth was a firm, white line. Then he spoke. “By us, it seems.”

  She walked ahead of him, forcing him to keep up with her shorter legs. As they walked, her mind spun.

  By us. Three weeks earlier, she wouldn’t have thought it possible. But now, after seeing the bodies of her own men with the mark of House Y’Zir carved into them and after hearing Ezra speak to the changing times and the rise of this so-called Crimson Empress, Winters knew that no matter how ludicrous it appeared on the surface, it could very well be true.

  They followed the winding caverns upward until breaking into the wider, cavernous throne room with its wicker chair. Beside it lay the silver axe of her office, and she took it up before sitting.

  Six of the Twelve were present, as were a handful of scouts and headmen. “What do we know?”

  One of the headmen stepped forward. “We know that birds were spotted racing south and east.” He held a small bird himself, stroking its brown back. “The message invokes Androfrancine and Gypsy kin-clave.”

  Winters extended a hand, and the headman slipped a small scrap of paper into it, tied still with white thread. She scanned the note quickly. It spoke of Marsh scouts at the gate and bore markings of a day earlier tied into its carrying thread. She looked up from the note. “Do we have scouts near the Palace?”

  Seamus shook his head. “No. None that I’m aware of, Queen.”

  Winters bit her lip and read the note again. It had come to her though it was unaddressed. But why? Surely, if they believed the Marshers besieged them, they wouldn’t send birds to her of all people.

  “It could be a trap,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “If so,” another of the Twelve said as he entered the cavern, “then it’s a convincing one.” All eyes turned to him and he frowned. “There’s smoke to the northwest,” he said. “The
Papal Palace is burning.”

  Winters felt the blood drain from her face. First, the assassinations. Then the caravans. Now, this. She wished Hanric were here. Or Rudolfo. Or even Neb. Surely one of them would know the best path she could take through this particular turn of the Whymer Maze.

  Still, despite the confidence she lacked, the answer spelled itself out clearly. Winters sighed. “Ready my mount,” she said. “We ride at once.”

  Seamus leaned close to her, and his hands moved in the dark sign language of House Y’Zir, his body shielding his words from prying eyes. Is my queen certain of the path she takes?

  She nodded. I am, Seamus. Then, she said it aloud for the benefit of the others. “I am certain.”

  The room emptied quickly as the men set about readying themselves. Winters hefted her axe, barely able to lift it with one hand, and stood. “I will need your aid, Seamus,” she said.

  The old man bowed. “Yes, Queen.”

  Winters frowned. “I’ve not needed armor before. Nor have I needed blades.”

  “I will see to it,” he said.

  As he scuttled off, she retreated to her private chambers to toss spare clothing and a sturdy pair of Gypsy boots into a knapsack. She also tossed in a tablet of parchment and a handful of pencils. She paused for a moment before the oak bureau that had been her father’s. There, sitting where she had left it upon her return from the mountain, was the vial of voice magicks.

  Perhaps now I preach my first War Sermon.

  The bitter taste flooded her mouth as she remembered that day atop the spine. She remembered the cold wind and the way the throne bit into her flesh, the way that her voice echoed across the craggy mountain peaks and how it moved along the hollowed-out, snow-swept canyons and valleys. It had been her first time with the voice magicks.

  She took down the vial and tucked it into her knapsack.

  There was a knock behind her and she turned. “Yes?”

  Seamus entered bearing an armful that he spilled onto her narrow bed. “I’ve raided the armory,” he said. “I’m not sure how much of this will be useful to you.”