by Carol Berg
“Truly, yes. But does following this path, whatever it is, mean I’m trespassing? How the devil am I to know?”
Bastien scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I’m thinking those that trounced you in the alley want to keep you out of wherever the magic can take you, and that’s where the blue and the silver have differing opinions.”
“So, by doing what she says—following this path to its mysterious destination and doing whatever in the name of all gods she thinks I can do there—I’m doing the exact thing the others said would make my wits forfeit. Gods!”
“Most of that, yes. But I think”—he wagged a thick finger—“she already named your destination. Listen to the words again.”
I retreated inward, recalling each word, so precisely spoken. I had to prove my quality before she could let me cross and remain there, in this place that could be Magrog’s realm, for all I know. She, the silver Sentinel, would either lead me astray or . . . “Sanctuary.”
“It’s such a particular word,” said Bastien. “Not something to fear, I’d think. But of what sort? Is it only for purebloods or all them the Harrowers want to murder? For those of us the gods have decided to starve and freeze? Just for their kind, whatever they are, or just for you?”
The tangle of threats and enticement made me want to pound my head on the wall.
“I’ll confess it,” I said. “For a man who’s spent his entire life getting educated, I must be the world’s most ignorant soul. I don’t even know what I have to learn. And if it is my dual bents that allow me to do these things, I have to ask: Did my grandsire know? Is this what my grandsire feared so deeply that he put my family in the way of the fire? But why? There must be a reason that every tale that lauds the beauteous Danae as the guardians of the earth also deems them treacherous.”
Bastien grunted. “Had an uncle who swore by the Danae. Left out nivat bread every feast day. Spent many a night in the meadows, watching them dance, so he said, and spied on them at the seasons’ turn when they came out of their lairs for the Great Dance. Swore he’d seen a pair of them mating in his field, and, sure to boots, he grew the best wheat in Morian.”
I glanced up, eager. “Could we speak to him?”
“Nah. Sliced his thigh with knife one winter solstice and hit the great bleeder. Turned out he was using the nivat for more than feast bread.”
“A twistmind.” The word quenched my excitement. I’d seen them in alleys and ditches, those who wounded themselves while eating enchanted nivat paste to spike pleasure from pain. As years passed, they needed more pain and more nivat to make it work—slowly killing themselves as their craving drove them mad. I’d been taught that twistminds and Cicerons were the dregs of the cities. Though Demetreo the Ciceron headman had been more complicated than I’d imagined. . . .
Something nagged at me. I wandered over to the table and looked at the last portrait I’d done. Only magic could have assured me that the brawny, laughing soldier matched the half man on the bier. The hollow dullness in my belly suggested he had starved. Famine times made hard choices. Had he done it willing or had someone else decided he was not worth the feeding? Something in the body’s disposition must have made Bastien suspicious.
How strange that drawing this sad fellow could transport me to another place and tantalize me with this Path of the White Hand. Bastien was sure to find someone that knew him, at least. His livery bore the blazon of the Guard Royale.
A blazon . . . Somewhere I’d seen or drawn a blazon incorporating a white hand. Indeed, Cicerons in my visions of the history of the Registry Tower had worn black tabards marked with the white hand . . . and somewhere else. . . .
“I did a portrait of an old Ciceron since I’ve been back. Do you still have it?”
“Aye. I’ve kept—”
A thump at the door announced Constance, or rather a pile of tatty velvet, stained linen, and torn brocade that comprised the promised clothes. So many things I needed and wanted to know, but the mysteries of the Danae and magic beyond comprehending would have to wait. Tonight belonged to Fleure and simple justice. I was off to Arrosa’s Temple to steal the name of the lily child’s murderer.
CHAPTER 22
“Word triggers are naught but whispers in the ear,” I said. “Simple. It’s one of the first magics a pureblood child learns, because it’s easy and so very excellent for tormenting parents and tutors.”
“I’m not ’feared.” A bold statement considering how Garen’s face was pale as the temple’s marble steps across the courtyard. His quivering rattled the dead lilac limbs that sheltered us.
Garen the runner, the rangy young man of one-and-twenty, had been as cocky as always when we left Caton. He passed off burgling a temple as scarce a bother for one who had grown up in the rough streets of Wroling, and the enchantments I planned to work as naught so very strange. He had shepherded me briskly through the hirudo, telling Demetreo’s sentries that his companion hunched in the ragged cloak and hood was one of Bastien’s witnesses. We didn’t want hirudo spies reporting me out and about. Indeed, it wasn’t the burgling that frightened him. It was the magic. My first spell was for him.
“What’s the word that will tell you it’s time to move?” I said, hoping repetition would settle him. “And tell me what you’ll do when you hear it in your head.”
“Word’s snatchit. And I go straight to the priestess’s chamber and search out the scroll in the fifth slot to the right on the bottom row of her scroll case.”
“Exactly so.” Assuming she’d left the page I’d signed where I’d seen her stow it. “And what will warn of danger coming your way?”
“Bolt. Then I’m to take the scroll straight out through the entry gate without waiting for you.”
“And what will you speak when you’ve got the scroll?”
“G-grabbed. Then I hide and wait for you to come do the magic.”
“Good. But no stammering. The words must be exact. Speak it clearly—even in a whisper—and I’ll hear, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. Is there a better word we should use?”
He shook his head vehemently. “I’ll do it right. Swear I will. Grabbed.”
I’d seen it before. Stiff as a flogging post, he was going to faint if I didn’t distract him.
“I know you will. Now—did I hear someone out there?”
He peered out of the lilac thicket into the fog of incense smoke and moonflower-scented steam hanging in the temple’s side garden. When he pulled back and shook his head, I shrugged and tapped both his ears as if to position him, and then dropped my hands to my side.
Chin held high and quaking damped, he eyed my idle fingers. “So, go on with the damnable magic. I’m ready.”
Grinning, I wriggled my fingers that yet tingled with enchantment. “Already done.” And then I covered my mouth and whispered, “Snatchit!”
He clapped his hand to his ears. A slow grin erased his awe. “Heard you clear as morning bells!”
I had been skeptical when Bastien insisted Garen partner with me. “He’s been about the world more than you think,” the coroner had said, with a firm grip on the young man’s shoulder. “He’s quick—feet and head both—and well-spoken when need be. Besides, who else would you have? Pleury would faint dead away when left on his own to do the snatch. And for certain none’s going to swallow me nor Garibald nor Constance as a pureblood’s servant. And it’s not as if you’ll leave him in any real danger. Not with your magic to see him safe, right?”
His ferocity had surprised me. Garen was a man grown.
I motioned Garen to straighten his collar, while I adjusted my vile doublet of puce and pea-green brocade, hoping to prevent Constance’s row of pins from continuing to puncture my spine.
“You’ll have to undress me at the baths. And carefully, too. Can’t have an attendant noticing these damnable pins or the bloody knife hole in this shirt. I’ll insist on privacy, but it’s best to believe someone will be watching us.”
“Not a worry,” h
e said, Bastien’s tough, confident assistant once again. “I’ve been in service.”
“All right, then. Demonstrate absolute confidence at all times. Your master is one of the gods’ chosen and no one can interfere with him—or you.”
None but other purebloods. But I couldn’t worry about that.
“And no matter whether it’s a lamp boy or a temple priestess asking, you’re not allowed to speak of me, even to reveal so much as my name. None who knows the law will think it strange. If they don’t know it, they’d best learn.”
How stupidly arrogant this sounded. Garen had seen me in chains and leather mask; he had seen me kneel to Bastien. But it wouldn’t do at all for a pureblood and his companion to be discovered violating a temple’s privacy. Arrest, disgrace, exposure . . . the Tower cellar for me, a quick hanging likely for Garen and Bastien. No end of consequences.
Nodding sharply, Garen tied his thick hair with a black ribbon, made sure his short cloak hid the old bloodstains on his own tunic, and held the lantern high. A comely fellow, no question.
I smoothed my new mask, a horizontal half as some families used. The mask surrounded both eyes, while leaving mouth and chin—and my month’s growth of beard and mustache—uncovered. Bek, the barber-surgeon who explored dead bodies, had trimmed my hair and beard, and Constance the dead-handler had cut the mask from a not-yet-buried knight’s silk grave winding. My lovely, refined, delicate mother . . . gods’ save me, she would have collapsed in horror to hear it.
I swallowed a grieving laugh. “Lead me in, Garen. We’ll make this work.”
We headed across the garden and the courtyard, toward the faded grandeur of Arrosa’s Temple. The sky had cleared, the moon was full, and one might imagine this a night from a happier spring. For the first time in almost three months, I walked free.
All the way from Caton, demon gatzé had whispered in my soul. Walk away. Find Juli. Make a life somewhere far distant. Let these ordinaries solve their own nasty mysteries.
Yet I was not yet ready to live as an ordinary—to betray the gods and their gift in my blood. Without magic I’d never be able to discover the truth of the altered portraits and whether they explained my family’s murder. Without magic I’d never understand the mystery of my bent or the Danae or the mysterious place the visions transported me. I didn’t even know whom to ask. Maybe old mad Cartamandua, the cartographer said to have walked out of this world into the realm of angels. Or maybe I was simply mad like he was. Else why did I persist in the impossible imagining that it was Morgan’s voice that had spoken my name by way of a creature whose skin glowed with blue fire?
But there was a more profound impetus to be here. Bastien had saved my reason. I owed him.
* * *
Flames leaped from the great earthen bowl, setting the giant bronze figure of Arrosa gleaming. A raven-haired young woman in rose-hued silk stood beside the goddess’s image. With perfect propriety, she waited, eyes lowered, for me to initiate our conversation.
“I’ve traveled a great distance to fulfill a vow,” I said. “I seek cleansing and all comfort the goddess provides.”
“Certainly, domé, Seeker of the Goddess’s Favor,” she said. “It is my privilege to conduct you to the Pools of the Gods’ Chosen. Your servant may remain in the waiting chamber.”
Eight or ten servants, a few in livery, a few plainly garbed, occupied benches about the walls of a poorly lit nook under the grand stair. Evidently temple stewards believed servants needed no lamp. Good. Perhaps none would note the shabby state of Garen’s finery or get an exact idea what he looked like.
“My servant will tend my garments at the baths and then return here to wait.”
Garen shuttered our lantern and hung it on the hooks beside the waiting chamber. As we followed the young woman into the steamy labyrinth, he positioned himself ahead of me, as I’d schooled him. I hoped his attention was fixed on the turnings and not the initiate’s shapely curves.
Evidently so. His hand flicked toward the sloping side passage that led up to High Priestess Irinyi’s chambers, telling me he recognized it from my description.
At the end of the passage, the initiate wished the Lady Arrosa’s blessing on my devotions and motioned us through the short passage into the men’s changing room.
A young man in a white loincloth, arms crossed and eyes lowered, awaited us in the small chamber with the latticework wall. He was not Leo. Relieved, I discarded the convoluted explanation I had prepared.
“Attendant,” I said.
“Welcome, Domé Seeker. I am Herai, who will attend—”
“Await me at the tepidarium, attendant, with sacred wine and oil of ephrain in its purest form. I prefer my own servant to care for my garments.”
“As you command, domé.” He withdrew without lifting his eyes.
No common stealth burglary was going to work in a temple open to worshippers all night. Priestesses offered prayers at all hours, and we’d had no time to learn exact schedules and locations. So I would create a distraction elaborate enough and serious enough to draw the high priestess and everyone else who might notice us far from the wall of scrolls in Irinyi’s chambers. And it had to keep everyone away long enough for Garen to snatch the scroll with my signature on it, and for me to rejoin him and use it to trigger my bent. With that scroll, magic, and a bit of luck, I would be able to locate the other scroll—the one with murderer’s damning signature.
As soon as the attendant had gone, I removed my mask. Garen looped it over his belt and without a murmur began attending to buttons and laces. Indeed he was smooth in his service, deftly whipping off the insect-raddled purple cloak, unpinning the overlarge doublet, and removing the bloodstained shirt. My poor lost valet, Giaco, could not have done it better. Boots and hose quickly followed the neatly folded outer garments into the clothes chest. So expert and servile were Garen’s postures, I began to wonder if he had once served in this temple.
When I nodded that he should remove my wretched underdrawers—also a gift from a Caton corpse—I lowered my gaze enough to glimpse the young man’s face. His composure was perfect, save for a hard set to his lips and an angry twitch in his jaw muscle. Perhaps he had served somewhere even less savory than a corrupted temple.
He bowed and I dismissed him. As he exited the doorway, I cupped hands over my mouth as if to offer a divine invocation and whispered, “Well done,” feeding a bit of magic into the words.
Garen’s head jerked ever so slightly as the word trigger sounded in his ears, but he did not look back or do anything else to break role. A small test, passed well. Gods grant it was the only surprise awaiting us.
A moment to fix the structure of time and events firmly in my head and I strode out of the changing room to the mist-hung tepidarium.
Herai stood ready with a wine cup. I downed a mouthful, passed back the cup, and reclined on the bench beside the pool. As a harper plucked a lazy melody in some distant hall, the youth began to wash my shoulders and arms. Neither enjoyment nor cleanliness was my object, of course. We needed time. Garen had to get back to the waiting room and be noticed among the servants, and I had to prepare my spellwork. This was going to use every paltry spell I knew, and though each part was simple enough, I had never attempted any working so complex.
“How many worshippers avail themselves of Arrosa’s gifts on such an evening?” I said.
The capable hands moved down my back. “Fewer of late than in the past, so I understand, domé. Ten or twelve in the public pools tonight, a nobleman and his two sons in the Pools of the Illustrious. It is a rare privilege to have anyone visit the Pools of the Gods’ Chosen.”
So fifteen or so Seekers. Young Pleury had spent the morning retrieving the information that Arrosa’s Temple housed three priestesses and twelve initiates, all of whom were women, five male acolytes, twenty bath attendants, and fifteen or twenty servants. I had some seventy people in the temple to distract.
Herai moved around to the front of me, unstoppe
red a crystal flask, and passed it under my nose. Ephrain. Inhaling the pungent oil tuned the senses like strings on a lute until they worked together in harmony, waiting for the right hand to play them.
“Does the scent please you, domé?”
“Yes, but use only a little for now. More when I come out of the pool.”
He spilled a few drops of ephrain onto his palms. I caught his wrist as his strong, attentive hands moved from chest to groin.
“Back, legs, and feet first,” I said. “I’ve traveled a long distance and have no wish to hurry my devotions. In my own land, this day marks one year exactly since my dedication to Arrosa Triumphant. A prophet in the land of Cymra on the western sea told me that this temple, of all of her great houses, is alive with the goddess. And he says my pureblood gifts stem directly from my divine lady’s hand. How can this not be a night of nights?”
I offered a silent apology to the lady goddess, reminding her that I hoped to cleanse her house of a great wrong.
“As you desire, domé. I am honored to aid in your celebration.” He knelt and went about his work, while I readied my spellwork.
By the time Herai returned to my nether regions, most of an hour had passed. Garen would have had time to be seen, but not studied too hard. The initiates in the atrium would have greeted other Seekers or gone back to their gossip or devotions, or whatever they did between arrivals. It was time for magic.
I grabbed Herai’s chin, rough but not cruel. “You make it difficult to control my urgencies, ordinary. But I am vowed to complete my year of celibacy entirely cleansed”—were relations between men uncelibate?—“and my priestess in Cymra warned me that breaking my vow would offend the goddess. Bathing first.”
“Certainly, domé.”
The deliciously warm water of the tepidarium should have been soothing, but what pleasure could be had in the pool where the murderer had blacked Fleure’s hair, choking the child to silence her sobs? I hoped to serve up a good fright to pay a small part of the debt the temple owed her.