A moment later, I stepped back from the duchess, bowing to a depth that surprised her. “Duchess Leogan, you honor us,” I said.
Her brows, beautiful but not as exquisite as Gael’s, drew together for a moment, curious. “The pleasure is mine, Lord Dura.” She turned to Bolt. “I hope you will remember me, Errant Consto, in your deliberations.”
Bolt dipped his head. “Alas, Duchess, the only criterion for the throne I may consider is the gift of kings.”
She nodded and with a swirl of cloth and hair returned to the riot of color and sound that defined court.
I leaned over. “I have what we need.”
Hours later, well before midnight, we approached the guards standing watch at the entrance to the queen’s expansive apartments. The captain came forward, his mouth ready with denials. “Errant Consto, you may not enter without Bishop Gehata’s permission.”
Bolt gestured me forward. “I believe Lord Dura has acquired the documents necessary for entrance, Captain.”
I put the parchment into his hand and held my breath, watching as the captain’s eyes widened and then narrowed as he read. With quick, sharp gestures, he refolded the parchment, checking the soldiers behind him.
“You may pass,” he said, but fury burned behind his eyes. With a nod, the guards opened the doors to the queen’s apartments. The vaulted space beyond was pitch-black. Not one lamp or candle burned to relieve the darkness.
“Where’s Prince Maenelic?” I asked.
The captain eyed me as if unsure whether he should or had to answer me. He opted for silence until Bolt repeated the question.
“Bishop Gehata thought it best to remove the prince from the environs of his mother’s untimely death. He felt such proximity was weighing unduly upon the prince’s mind. The prince has been sent north to help command our forces in the battle against the Darkwater.”
Of a wonder, no one in our group made the obvious remark. Bolt retreated a few steps to pull a pair of lamps from the wall and we entered, the sound of the doors closing behind us hollow, like a cell door closing.
Gael tugged at my sleeve. “The captain had the look of a man who wanted to kill you.”
“Nothing unusual about that, yah?” Rory said.
“He had reason,” I said. “That letter wasn’t permission from Bishop Gehata, it was a threat to expose his affair with Duchess Leogan.”
Rory shook his head. “Marriage here is a sport. Why would anyone care?”
“The nobles here don’t like it when people secretly change teams,” Gael said.
I pointed into the darkness. “We’ll need more light—as much as possible.” I moved around the entrance hall, lighting each of the lamps that hung from silver sconces until argent illumination filled the space. And what a space it was. We stood in a greeting room big enough to serve as a throne room in a lesser kingdom. Toward the east a wide set of stairs swept upward, spiraling toward the next level.
“The royal quarters are upstairs, but this is where Queen Chora died,” Bolt said, pointing to the staircase. The stairs, naked of any adornment except the natural veins of the stone and a mirror polish ascended away from me. They were steeper than I expected.
“How many steps are there?”
“Thirty-six,” Bolt said.
I wasn’t from Moorclaire, where they lived the mathematicum, but I’d had enough education to recognize the numbers from the Exordium, either the four by nine sides of the rectangle or the six square. I stopped to wonder what mysteries the Exordium held and whether Ealdor and his Fayit brethren had anything to do with it.
I walked toward the steps with my eyes on the floor. A lighter spot at the foot of the staircase indicated an area that had been cleaned, a whiter shade than the surrounding stone. I pulled my gloves and lifted a prayer to Aer that months with the gift could give me a portion of what had taken long years for Bronwyn to learn. I bent to the spot and closed my eyes, hardly daring to breathe for fear of missing what I might see.
Ghosts of images flickered across my awareness, and I reached for them, trying to pull them to me. One of those images, the owner of the blood on the floor, would have to be stronger than the others, but it defied me. Unbidden, Bronwyn’s admonition came to me. Relax. You can’t force it.
I exhaled and let my breathing slow. There, hovering at the edge of perception I caught the hint of a woman, gifted. “She died here.”
With a glance to Bolt, I grabbed one of the lamps and moved up the stairs, searching for spots where the stone had been cleansed of Chora’s blood. I found another, smaller, spot about a third of the way up, but I searched for something more telling. At the top near the heavy marble rail, I found a bleached circle a pair of hands wide. I stooped, and laid my hands on the mark, pressing my skin against cool marble.
I rose after a moment and surveyed the floor in both directions, walking and counting my paces until I hit thirty, but I found no more. Retreating back to the top of the stairs, I called to Bolt. “I found Queen Chora’s blood in three places. At the bottom, a third of the way up”—I caught Bolt’s gaze—“and here at the top.”
He blinked. “You’re sure—absolutely sure?”
“It’s hers.”
His chest rose and fell. “And it’s recent?”
I nodded. “They all are.”
Bolt knelt and ran his sword hand along the bleached spot on the stone. “It’s smaller than I expected.”
Gareth, my partner reeve in Bunard, knew more about how a man could bleed out than anyone living, and he’d managed to teach me a few things in our time together. “There are too many things we still don’t know.”
He looked at me, his face as cold as the mountains in winter. “But there are some we do.”
Gael and Rory ascended the stairs, their expressions questioning. “What did you find?” Gael asked.
I scuffed the bleached spot on the floor with my foot. “A mystery.”
She looked from me to Bolt and back again. “She didn’t die from the fall?”
“It’s possible,” I said, “but I think she had help. I found evidence of a pool of her blood here . . . at the top of the stairs.”
“So the dwimor got to her after all,” Rory said.
I pulled a breath. “I’m not sure.”
Bolt looked as if he could chew rocks and ask for seconds. “The Archbishop lied to us. That’s the sort of thing that puts me in a bad mood.”
“He might not have lied,” I said. “The knife stroke at the top of the stairs might not have killed her.”
“I don’t bother trying to distinguish between lying and deceiving by omission,” Bolt said. “Vyne left out a few details.” He looked at me. “I think we’ve been played, Willet. You were able to pull the memory of Chora’s presence from a trio of bleached smudges on the floor. You shouldn’t have been able to do that.”
With their experience, Pellin and Toria would have little difficulty doing what I had done. “Would Vyne have known that?”
“Probably,” Bolt said. “He may have waited for Pellin and Toria Deel to slip away.”
I sighed. “I don’t think there’s anything more we can do here. Where’s the body? I need to see it.”
Gael reached out to touch my arm. “Why? We know she was killed by a dwimor.”
“Too many things are out of place,” I said. “We need to be sure.” A familiar tickle in my mind put me on my guard. Something important nagged at me.
Bolt shook his head at me. “She’s lying in state in the cathedral, Willet. Archbishop Vyne has already denied us permission to view the body.”
I nodded. “I wasn’t actually thinking of asking again. Do they leave the body in the sanctuary around the clock?”
He’d already opened his mouth in denial, but my last question stopped him. “No. It’s removed each night so the gravesmen can tend to her.”
Rory frowned. “And do what?”
Gael put a hand on his shoulder in a protective gesture. “The queen will lie in
state for two weeks. At the end of each day the gravesmen tend to her to make sure she’s suitable for viewing, especially toward the end.”
“Silly custom,” Rory said. “I don’t want a bunch of people gawking at me after I die. Just put me in a coracle and send me downstream. With any luck I’ll pass over the western sea and my spirit will see what’s out there.”
I stifled a sigh. Those who chose the coracle instead of burial or cremation clung to the old beliefs, a faith that hardly recognized Aer, Iosa, and Gaoithe at all. I knew the reasons behind Rory’s disbelief, but it still grieved me.
“Can we get in to see her?”
Bolt gave me a slow nod. “Possibly, but there’s no way to hide the visit from Vyne.”
I flexed a hand. “Yes there is, if we can keep from being seen by too many people.”
Bolt looked like he wanted to argue, but something he saw in my expression must have made him reconsider. “At least we have most of the night to get this done. We’ll need it. The cathedral is on the other side of Cynestol.”
We worked our way down and out of the royal compound and finally came to the stables. I didn’t know if the hands recognized Bolt, but they gave us four horses without question and we set a canter east toward the cathedral.
The six-sided church, the mother of the faith here on the northern continent, loomed over us in the dark like an omen of judgment for our sacrilege. The fact that I rode in the company of three gifted somehow failed to encourage me. If we were discovered, Archbishop Vyne would summon Hradian and the rest of the cosp and overwhelm us by numbers.
Four hours before dawn we dismounted in the stable yard of an inn two streets away from the basilica and surrendered the reins of our horses to a sleepy attendant who made a halfhearted attempt to peer beneath the hoods of our cloaks. When Bolt added another half-crown to the fee, the attendant bowed and kept his gaze on his feet.
“I take it we’re not going through the front door,” Gael said.
I shook my head. “There will be priests awake, even at this forsaken hour, brothers and postulants in the process of taking their orders. It’s traditional for them to fast and go without sleep before they recite their final vows.”
In the dark, the six sides of the cathedral blended, their demarcation points nearly indistinct so that the huge construct appeared almost circular. “Which entrance is least likely to have traffic at this hour?” I asked Bolt.
“The entrances facing northeast and northwest are the least used, even during the daytime.”
It took us thirty minutes to circle around as we avoided the occasional member of the watch. I tried to ignore the disapproving way the church loomed over me, as if I’d brought evil intentions here from the cold, dark north of my home. “Get us in,” I told Rory. “We’ll wait for you here.”
He slipped out of his cloak. His shirt and breeches were dark, blending with the shadows. “Are the doors barred from the inside?” he asked Bolt.
At Bolt’s nod, he stepped back, eyeing the distance to the first parapet. “That’s too bad. I’d rather pick a lock than climb. Still, it’s a church. There’s lots of ornamentation.”
He moved to the left, toward the spot where two of the walls came together at one of those odd, obtuse angles and set his hands on the staggered outcroppings of stone. Within a minute he was twenty feet above us. Ten minutes later the door opened.
Chapter 20
Rory stood outlined in the gloom of the cathedral entrance, the light of the moon casting his eyes into shadow. How could a place of worship seem so forbidding? “Where is the queen kept?” I whispered.
Bolt shook his head. “It’s not like the rulers of Aille drop dead on a regular basis. Let’s start with the rooms closest to the sanctuary.”
With Rory in the lead, we ascended a set of stairs that spiraled up into darkness. Halfway up, he froze. I stood on the balls of my feet, waiting while my heart thundered in my chest, my ears straining to hear whatever had brought Rory to a stop. A moment later, we continued on, moving in darkness without the benefit of a torch to guide us. By the time we reached the top of the stairs, we were far enough above the base of the cathedral that a fall would have killed a man.
Rory stared out into the broad hallway without moving. Slowly, to avoid even the sound of cloth against cloth, I removed my gloves, closed my eyes, and put my hand on his neck.
His vision replaced the darkness behind my lids, and the world came to me in muted shades of charcoal. A distant light illuminated two figures from behind, passing the intersection of our hallway and another, larger, one. Rory’s sense of smell couldn’t begin to compare with Wag’s, but with his physical gift I caught the barest hint of the gravesman’s art. The smell drifted to me from beyond the intersection.
The men passed. “She’s on this floor,” I whispered.
Rory didn’t move after the men passed, standing instead at attention, a throwing knife in each hand. Then I saw the outline of another pair of figures, passing in the same direction. Familiarity tugged at me as I watched them until they left my field of vision.
I lifted my hand, and the world sprang back to normal with an abruptness that made my eyes hurt. I stepped back into the shelter of the stairwell, motioning for my companions to join me.
“There are regular patrols,” I said. “About half a minute apart.”
“That’s going to make it difficult,” Gael said.
“There’s more.”
“Of course there is,” Bolt whispered in disgust. “What?”
“They’re cosp. I recognized a couple of the men who came for us at Edring. What would be so important about keeping anyone from examining the queen’s body that Vyne would ring it with physically gifted in the dead of night?”
I heard Bolt’s sigh. “Why does everything have to be difficult?” he asked.
Gael gave an amused little laugh. “We’re sneaking around the cathedral at night so that we can examine the queen’s body. What did you expect?”
“This, pretty much,” he said, “but once, just once, I’d like for something to go unexpectedly easy.”
“We have to get past the intersection,” I said. “The queen is somewhere on the far side. The problem is, the guards are patrolling a circuit, and if they’re all in sight of each other, it’ll be impossible to get through without being seen.”
Bolt and Rory exchanged a quick glance before Rory shed his shoes, pulled the hood of his cloak to his face, and before going ten steps disappeared into the shadows of the hallway.
“What do we do if the patrols are too tightly bunched to get through?” I asked.
Bolt shook his head. “Haven’t we had this conversation before? Why do you insist on borrowing trouble?”
Instead of responding, I put my hand on Gael’s neck to watch Rory sneak down the hallway. Even knowing he was there, I had trouble spotting him. He kept to the wall, flitting from doorway to doorway, disappearing into spaces that shouldn’t have been large enough to conceal him.
Two men walked past, and Rory darted on silent feet to the intersection, his head cocked for a split second before peeking around the corner. I knew he must be counting, but I couldn’t help but mark the time with the beats of my heart.
I hadn’t gotten to three before he jerked backward without a sound and merged with the shadow of the nearest doorway once more. He waited, and then repeated the process until the same pair of guards made the circuit. When he rejoined us, I had to fight the temptation to borrow some of Jeb’s vocabulary.
“It’s going to be tight,” Rory said. He didn’t have to look at me for everyone to know what he meant. I was the only one of our group who wasn’t physically gifted. Everyone else would have no trouble darting across the hallway in silence before they could be seen. But me? If the spaces between the guards should close, or I make just a hint too much noise, they would be on us.
Bolt shook his head. “The risk is too great, Willet. We need to withdraw. My first duty is to safeguard you. Do
I need to remind you that you’re one of four people on the entire continent who can fight the Darkwater?”
“We can’t,” I said. “If it wasn’t plain before, it is now. We have to see the queen.”
“They’re going to hear you, Willet,” Gael said. “You can’t move quietly or quickly enough.”
I pulled a deep breath into my shaking lungs. “Maybe I can. How wide is the hallway, Rory?”
“Maybe fifty feet.”
Twenty paces. I had perhaps three seconds to get across twenty paces without making a sound.
That physically gifted guards wouldn’t hear.
Sure.
I opened my mouth to admit defeat—to tell Bolt we were headed back to the palace—when Rory tugged on my sleeve. “I can show you how to be quick and silent, like a thief.”
“You can do that?”
I could barely see his smile in the gloom as he tapped his head. “I’ve been training thieves for years.”
Bolt and Gael were still shaking their heads. I knew why. Even with Rory’s knowledge, I would still have to be quick, very quick, across the gap.
“Alright.” I nodded and put my hand on his arm and let the memories he offered flood through me. Instead of storing them, I let them combine with my own so that his instructions to a horde of boys and girls less than half my age filled my mind. When I lifted my hand, I knew how to be silent, but I still didn’t know how to be fast enough.
Bolt looked at me, shaking his head. “You mean to do this, don’t you.”
I nodded. “There’s something here that’s more than just a little wrong.”
“Yeah, I figured. In that case, you’ll go first. If they don’t catch you, they won’t catch the rest of us.”
The Wounded Shadow Page 16