by Carol Berg
Chapter 26
The boy must have grown three quattae in the weeks since I’d left Gillarine. Whether it was the green temple livery or the grim circumstances, he looked older as well. And though forthcoming with news of Gillarine, he no longer babbled with the tongue of innocence. Resentment and withholding laced his every politeness.
“I’m truly sorry to hear Gerard’s not found,” I said, forcing my thoughts to focus as we sat close to the little brazier, devouring the cold roast duck and soggy bread he’d brought from the kitchen. “He didn’t take anything with him at all? Has he family?”
“Not even his cloak. And he has only his gram in Elanus; she hasn’t seen him. Father Abbot fears he is harmed and that’s why he brought me away from Gillarine, besides to come here and take your messages and pass on his. I ought to be back there searching for him, not—” He pressed his lips together.
“Not playing servant to a recondeur.”
His downy cheeks flushed. “The lady—the Sinduria—believes I’ll be allowed to stay with you wherever they send you next. She’ll set up some way for me to get messages back and forth.”
My head swam with heat and fear. Thalassa had sworn to help. Gods, she had asked my forgiveness and threatened to break with my father, and I’d scarcely given her a thought. But she would have sent Jullian before she knew where I was going. “No. You cannot stay. It would be a comfort…more than you know…but after tomorrow, they won’t allow it. I won’t allow it.”
But tonight…Somehow Jullian’s presence moved me to decision. To action, however useless.
“Who has come with you to Palinur? Brother Victor, I know, and you said the abbot…”
“Father Abbot and Brother Victor have been summoned to appear before the hierarch tomorrow at Terce. Brother Gildas and I accompanied them. We’re staying at a priory here in the city. When he left Gillarine, Father Abbot spoke to the brothers as if he weren’t coming back. He gave the care of the lighthouse to Father Prior—”
“Nemesio? Is he mad?” I threw the bone onto my half-filled plate, the last bites of meat still attached. “Nemesio likely betrayed him to the hierarch!”
“Prior Nemesio helped build the lighthouse with his own hands.” Though he kept his voice low, the boy could have cracked nuts in his jaw. “His father and brother are carpenters, villeins of an edane with great landholdings in Morian. We’d not have half the tools and seeds were it not for him. He would never betray the abbot. Never. You don’t know us at all.”
Clearly not. How easy it was to look backward and see myself as young and stupid and unforgivably self-absorbed. Had I aged so much these few weeks? The boy’s deepest grievance sat before me as bald as a monk.
“And you don’t know me, either, do you?” I said, wiping my greasy fingers on the table linen. “A traitor to god and king, you think. Not the wounded soul you rescued at the sanctuary gate.”
“Aye. I don’t know why Father Abbot thinks one like you could help us.” He began twiddling his eating knife. “He said I was to obey you on my soul’s life.”
His chin jutted bravely, but his eyes flicked from his knife to my hands as if hell’s fire might come shooting from my fingers. Best he never see Silos’s tricks.
I sighed and reached for his wrist, stilling the dangerous play of the knife. If I were to trust him at my back, I preferred him to think me a man and not a monster. “Listen to me, Jullian. Surely some men must come to Gillarine with all sincerity, believing Iero has called them to your life…your good and holy life…and then chafe at the rules and break them and not understand why. Eventually they realize that they are meant for other things—to marry and have children, perhaps, or to farm their own ground, or to soldier for their king. All good and holy things, too. It just takes them some time and grief to discover the truth of what the god intends. That could happen, could it not? That has happened at Gillarine, I’m sure.”
“But you never intended to be our brother—”
I held up my hand to hush him. Why was it this boy demanded such painful honesty? I had lived my whole life believing what others said of me, while screaming to the world and to myself that I didn’t care. Now a half-grown innocent forced me to seek explanations I had never bothered to unravel.
“I’m not speaking of my stay at Gillarine. You’re right about that. I was hungry, cold, and wounded, and I needed sanctuary, which you and your kind brothers gave me. But this other matter…I did not come to pureblood life of my own choice, but was born to it, and so one could say the god meant me for that life. Yet from my earliest days, before I could even consider such things, I chafed…sorely…at our rules and did not understand why. For good or ill, I’ve broken every one of them, much as a failed monk might do while wrestling with his destiny. Many of my deeds are simply my own wickedness, and people are right…you are right…to condemn me for them. But my choice to be a recondeur…Jullian, the belief is so strong in me—just as fierce as your belief in the abbot and his lighthouse—that the gods or fate or destiny must surely intend me for other things than this. Likely not the monastery either, to be sure…but something…and I have to keep searching for it, else I must admit I’m mad as well as sinful and deem my whole life a waste. I am not ready to do that. Not yet.” Though the glass was rapidly emptying.
He held quiet and stared at his greasy plate, littered with bones and scraps. Then, abruptly, he jumped up from his stool and vanished into the bedchamber. When he came out again, he carried a large canvas bag.
“Jullian, please don’t leave. I need your help to—”
He plopped the heavy bag into my lap. “Are you to ask your grandfather our questions tonight?” he said, still resentful. “Father Abbot said that’s what you would do.”
The surety of this assertion confounded me, for only as I sat here talking to the boy had I accepted that I must speak to the madman before I left this house. “I wasn’t—Not exactly. I—”
“Father Abbot said I was to tell you that he trusts you. Open it.”
Skeptical, I drew open the bag. In my lap lay my grandfather’s book of maps.
I was dumbfounded. Luviar believed these pages held the key to preserving the knowledge of the world through two centuries of darkness, and he had just entrusted them to the hands of a liar and a thief, a traitor to god and king, a prisoner incapable of escaping his own house.
I felt Luviar’s cool gray eyes on me, as if he stood beside Jullian, and I imagined the arch of his brow and the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. What kind of magic did a man wield to unravel men’s souls and mold them to his bidding? Here at the nadir of fortune, the abbot had granted me a moment of profound grace. In thanks, I would have done whatever he bade me.
Wrestling with time and possibility, I smoothed the leather binding and reshaped my plan. “I must speak with my grandfather before I leave this house tomorrow. If you’ll help me get out of this apartment for a little while tonight so I can do that, I’ll take this with me. I can’t promise. But I’ll try to get Father Abbot’s answers as well as my own.”
Though he did not smile, Jullian jerked his head. His mortal judgment had been stayed, but I was not sure for how long. He put his hands on his slender hips. “So tell me what to do…”
Protocol granted even a recondeur bound to the Monster of Evanore privacy for anything involving bodily intimacy. Thus, if someone in my father’s house took the wild notion to visit a violent renegade in the middle of the night, he or she would hold off long enough for me to finish bathing. Jullian was smaller than Lukas, so it was only natural that it would take him longer than Lukas to haul enough hot water from the kitchen. I would have perhaps an hour.
“…so if anyone comes, just say I’m unclothed and you’ll bring word when you have me dressed again. You must be firm and sure. No wavering. No apology. You must think like a servant of Samele’s Temple. Though not a pureblood like my guards, you would consider yourself above the house servants. Can you do that?”
; “I think so.”
“Be sure, Jullian, for if you’re caught…”
“The Sinduria told me the consequences if I’m caught helping you. And I told her that I would do whatever was needed for Iero’s work.” His thin shoulders were stiff and square.
I had not thought I had a smile left in me, but the image of this Karish aspirant with a cracking voice and downy lip saying such a thing to a high priestess of Samele could not but make my face twitch. “And my sister truly arranged this…approved of your helping me?”
“Aye. She said she wasn’t sure you’d be willing to speak to the old man, but I was to tell you that you’re the only hope for getting sense out of him. And that she was glad she was there to keep the Harrowers off you. I wasn’t sure what that meant.”
“Yes…well…that’s another story. But if the occasion should arise…when you see her again…tell her I’m glad of it, too.” My sister baffled me.
We pulled the tub from the corner to the rug before the brazier. Then I sent the boy off to the kitchen for the first pail of water, describing how he could take a slightly longer route and verify that no guards were posted at the corner apartment or inside the courtyard.
A purple and black tunic, black breeches, hose, and boots had been laid out in my bedchamber. The silver mask had been laid beside the clothes. I swallowed hard and vowed not to think again of tomorrow, but only of tonight, and how in the name of all gods I might get sensible answers from my grandfather.
I changed out of my fine clothes and into the plainer garb more suited to sneaking about in the night and stuffed the book of maps back into its bag.
The locks rattled, and the door flew open. Jullian lugged in a heavy pail of steaming water. I took it from him and dumped it in the tub. “Only one man inside the courtyard,” he said, breathless. “He’s standing in the corner at the outer wall, where there are no rooms. It’s too dark to see your door from there, but he came running the instant I stepped out. They’ve closed the archway gate to the rest of the house, and he must unlock its magic to let me through each trip. There’s two more fellows in pureblood cloaks posted just beyond the gate, so only a step will bring them into the yard. I heard more voices outside the walls. Lots of them.”
“You told the fellow you were coming out again?”
“Aye, but he went back to his post in the corner.”
“Good enough. It means they trust my door wards to warn them if I step out. Take a bit more time on your next trip. Tell the kitchen maids the bucket was too heavy, and you’ll need to fill it more times with less in it. Tell them I’m demanding the water be hotter. Blame me. They’ll understand that.”
“Very well.”
“If someone seems suspicious, and you think I need to get back here, or if you need me for any reason, drop your pail outside the corner apartment. I’ll hear it. But do not—now, listen to me—do not lie to the two at the gate or to any other pureblood. You’ve no experience at lying, and as sure as fleas bite, they will detect it in you. If they ask you if I’m out of my room, tell them the truth. Tell them what you think of me. Tell them I’m a servant of Magrog half again your height and could break you over my knee—which is entirely true, and I’ll do it if you try making up stories. Keep your abbot’s secrets as you’ve ever done, but blame me for this whole mess. Do you understand?”
He hesitated.
“Blame me, Jullian. They cannot do worse to me than they’ve already done, unless it is to hurt you or the brothers of Gillarine. I’ll sit right here with this book all night if you don’t promise.”
“Very well. I won’t lie to them if they should ask.”
I grabbed the book and a shielded lamp and slipped through the door alongside him, so the ward would be triggered only the once. Flattening myself against the wall, I listened as he met the guard and they walked toward the gate. Then I crept across the courtyard to my grandfather’s door.
The windows of the corner apartment were dark. From inside came a soft, low droning, as if a dulcian player had got stuck on one mournful note, and no matter how he wrenched and blew, he could not change it. The absence of charged heat about the locked door meant I had only a lock to break, not magical wards. I dared not use a voiding spell—it was too “loud,” too different and would surely be detected by those guarding this courtyard. Rather I touched my fingers to the lock and assembled an unlocking spell, hoping to have better luck than I’d had in Gillarine’s library. Trying not to rush, I loosed a bit of magic to flow into the spell and through it into the old bronze pins, shifting them ever so slightly, feeling my way. Such a slow dribble of magic would not be noticeable in the midst of the heavy wards elsewhere in the courtyard. As long as I didn’t get impatient…or run out of time…
By the time the last pin released and I pushed open the door, my teeth were vibrating and Jullian had taken a third trip to the kitchen. At least my eyes had adjusted to the dark. I stepped in, closed the door behind me…and almost retreated immediately. The stench was near unbearable—every foulness a confined human could produce.
A couple of low stools and an unlit brazier took form in the shadows. There was little else to be seen in that barren darkness but a clutter of clothes and blankets on the floor. The droning note came from the far left corner of the room, a mournful song of mind-death and despair.
“Capatronn,” I said softly. “Are you awake?”
I picked my way through the clutter. Not all clothes on the floor, no…parchment…pages and pages scattered everywhere. And amid the various stinks hung the familiar mix of tannin and vitriol—ink.
“It’s Valen, Capatronn. I’ve come to talk.”
He was huddled in the corner, eyes open, staring into nothing. I set the lamp on the floor, far enough away he could not kick it over, and tilted the cover open slightly. He clutched a wad of vellum sheets, and a string of drool sagged from his mouth and pooled on the crumpled pages. Those who label madness as release from pain and worry have never encountered such a sight. In that moment pain and worry entirely comprised my grandfather’s existence.
“Capatronn, can you hear me?”
As if I’d struck him, his head jerked, and his hands flailed wildly, his pages flying everywhere. “Valen! My good boy…I feared they’d taken thee!”
“Shhh…we must be quiet.” I sat down in front of him, leaving the bag containing the book in my lap. To settle him I had to catch his flying hands and hold them tight.
He bobbed his head, chewed his raw lips, and snatched his hands from mine. “Yes, quiet and careful. They’re close tonight…I feel them close. They touch me.” He shuddered and tapped his bony fingers on his skull. “Careful, lad. Careful. ’Tis no life for thee.”
My skin prickled. “No one’s close. I need you to tell me some things I’ve never understood. Secrets, I think.”
He pressed his knuckles to his mouth, his gaze darting anxiously around the dark, filthy room. “Secrets. Bargains. Promises. Contracts. Everything is secrets and contracts. For thee. To be safe. To be free.”
I hardly knew where to begin. But the chill beneath my layered clothing and the mystery of the watcher at the Aingerou’s Font set my course. “Capatronn, who is Clyste?”
“Cannot tell that. The contract…thou canst not know.” He gnawed on his bleeding knuckles.
“She’s a Dané, isn’t she? Her sianou—her place of guarding—is a pool in the south of Ardra, only a few quellae from Caedmon’s Bridge near Gillarine Abbey. Clyste’s Well, they call it.”
“Ahh…” He put his hands over his ears. “Thou canst not know. Don’t say it. He’ll think I told thee and put me in the daylight dark.”
“Who’ll think it? Patronn?” Why would my father care if my grandfather told me one more story about a Dané? And what did pureblood contracts have to do with beings of legend?
“Daylight dark and nighttime dark…no light ever. No drawing then. No painting. No scribing. Then I’ll go mad!” As if he realized the absurdity of this stateme
nt, he planted his hands atop his head and cackled as he let it fall back against the wall. When the manic laughter shifted into shuddering sobs, I came near giving up hope of any sense. But after a moment, he leaned forward, tears glinting on his cheeks, and whispered, “Too late for Clyste anyway…too late.”
“Why too late?”
“She told them naught of our bargain. So the others locked her away to punish her. Chained her with myrtle and hyssop so she could not take bodily form. Bound her to slow fading. So young…”
The others. Other Danae. She was one of them.
I tried to ask more about the Danae, but every question became a knife thrust, wrenching sobs from his bony body. I had to try something else.
“Look, Capatronn, I’ve brought my book.” I pulled it out of its bag and eased around beside him. “I thought you might look at it with me as we did when I was a boy.”
His spasms waned as I allowed the weight of it to rest on his knees and opened it, ready to snatch it away if he tried to harm it. But his finger hovered over the title and then glided, not quite touching, over the glorious elaboration of gryphons and angels wrought in emerald green, scarlet, and gold that glinted in the lamplight. “I made this. I. When my head was right. The finest maps ever in the world. Mine.”
“Yes, indeed.” Madness had clearly not dimmed his self-admiration. “Remember, you gave it to me when I was seven. Patronn was furious.”
“Spited Claudio with the giving. He exacted such a price…keeping me from thee. Beastly. Shamed me to bargain with my own blood. So it pleased me to spite him. But my mind was forfeit…failing…and I had to give the book early.”
“And I was a wild, horrid child who never appreciated the gift. You made me swear to use—”
“Only after eight-and-twenty!” He snatched my hands away from the book and crushed them in his bony fingers, still incredibly strong. “Go not into their lands until thou art free. Only then. Thou gave me thy promise. Swore on the aingerou with thy blood. Thou must be careful with the book…Wait until the time is right and thou canst walk every corner of the world without bond or bowing to any. Thou’lt remain as thou art. Promise, Valen. Promise! I betrayed her so thou couldst be free.” His eyes and hands and head twitched.