Luis blinked as though he wanted to look anywhere else but at Errol’s accusation. “That wasn’t my intention, Errol.”
Errol barked a laugh in reply. “Intention? I thought you were all my friends. I’ve been shot at by assassins, hunted by a demon-possessed Merakhi, imprisoned and forced to cast lots against my will, and after all that you want me to sit here while you and Martin give each other knowing looks and talk around the things you don’t want me to know. Were you ever going to tell me there are ferrals in the conclave?”
A pall covered the room. Only the sound of Errol’s breathing, impassioned and labored, sounded within the space.
Cruk’s hand rested on his sword. “How do you know they’re ferrals, boy?”
Errol shook his head at the captain, turned back to the reader. “What have your intentions done except put me in danger? By the three, tell me what I want to know and what you want from me.”
Cruk’s hand spun him around. “How do you know they’re ferrals?”
Errol met the captain’s angry gaze, matched it with one of his own. “There was one with Eck!” He rounded on Martin. “Who’s hunting me?”
Martin stood, pulled at his jaws. “I don’t know, Errol.” He held up a hand. “If I knew, I would tell you and use whatever influence I had to stop them.”
Errol looked to Luis. The reader shook his head. “I’ve tried casting for our enemy, Errol, but other than Merakh, nothing comes up. I’m sorry. I am unable to frame the correct question.”
Martin stared at him, and in the brown depths of the priest’s eyes Errol beheld a vast sorrow and an even greater determination. “We need you, Errol, more than you know, but the fate of the kingdom rests on a precipice. How do we know we can trust you?”
“Trust me? How much more do I have to do?” Angry, Errol stood and looked pointedly around the room as if searching. For months he’d puzzled over the priest’s and the reader’s every word and nuance. Each time he gleaned a piece of information that shed light on what the two men were about, he replayed every conversation all over again. Weeks ago, after listening to Conger on night duty, he thought he understood. Now he would put his theory to the test.
He met Martin’s calm, assessing gaze with his own. “Does Liam know you plan to make him king?”
Martin and Luis didn’t flinch, but Cruk’s hand darted, and a foot of steel cleared the scabbard before he stopped, his face wreathed in a grimace.
Errol smiled without showing his teeth and nodded toward the watchman. “So it’s true.”
25
THE CONCLAVE
LUIS BOLTED UPRIGHT. His chair fell with a clatter against the polished floor. “We will not make anyone king. The lots will choose.” Martin inhaled to speak, but the reader jerked toward him. “We will not. I told you before only a cast from durastone would suffice.” He flung his hand toward Errol. “By now he’s cast enough lots to know for himself.”
Luis spoke the truth, but Martin’s reaction gave the lie to the reader’s words. When the answer came to him, he almost laughed. “If I were a reader,” he said slowly, “and had to sculpt the stone to find the next king, I think I’d test it in wood first.”
Luis paled.
“You’ve already done that, haven’t you?”
Martin answered before the reader could speak. “Well, Errol, it seems we have no choice but to trust you.” He looked toward Cruk. “That or kill you, and you’re far too valuable for that. It is as you suspect. Liam will be king. That young man is the salvation of our kingdom.”
“Who knows?” Errol asked.
Martin smiled. “Only those of us in this room, the primus, and the archbenefice. We controverted the power of the church and its Judica. If it became known, we would be excommunicated, including the archbenefice and the primus.”
Cruk snorted. “At best.”
After a moment, Martin nodded.
“But why?” Errol asked. “If Liam is to be the next king, then he’s to be the next king. You could have waited for Rodran to die and the conclave would have selected him.”
Martin nodded, but not in agreement. “Possibly. Forgive me if I speak obliquely, but our actions were deemed necessary to protect the future king. I cannot say more without putting him in danger.”
Errol turned to Luis. “How close are you to the cast?”
“There are five lots left to craft,” Luis said. “I have the stone, but it takes time, much more time, to sculpt stone than to carve wood, and for obvious reasons, we require a much higher degree of perfection.”
White. Smooth as glass and as round as the sun. Errol remembered Luis’s treasure, a crate full of stone lots that would determine the next king. Beyond doubt, it would be Liam. If there was ever a man born perfect, it was him.
“Does Liam know?”
Martin looked away. Luis and Cruk fidgeted.
Errol shook his head in disbelief. “You haven’t told him. That’s why he’s not here.”
Martin sighed. “For four years we’ve groomed him to take the kingship. Cruk, Luis, and I have taught him everything we know from sword craft to church history.” He grimaced. “Liam will be a king for the ages precisely because he is uncorrupted by the power he will wield.”
Errol nodded. “I doubt he’ll thank you when the time comes.”
“We are in your power now, Errol,” Luis said. “If the Judica discovers that we’ve already cast for the king, there are men, powerful men, who will see us imprisoned for it.”
“Or worse,” Cruk said.
A sigh whispered through Errol’s lips at the secrets within secrets. They tired him. “I won’t tell anyone.”
Guards patrolled the halls of the conclave in constant vigil. Men traveled the corridors in twos and threes, one man looking forward and one looking behind at all times. Everyone, reader or not, kept a ready hand on a sword, and the hiss of steel answered each unexpected sight or sound. Some, men who wore their struggle against fear in plain sight on their faces, went with naked weapons held at the ready.
Cruk growled at the sight as he escorted Luis and Errol. “A few more attacks and we’ll be saving our enemies the trouble. We’ll just carve each other up.”
The only men who dared walk the halls alone without bared weapons were gray-clad monks. They shuffled through the corridors, their cowled heads bent toward the floor. One of them passed him just as Errol inhaled through his nose.
He gagged at the stench. When the man turned a corner, the air burst from his lungs. “Phew. Why don’t they bathe?”
Luis exhaled with a heavy sigh. “They’re monks from Carthus. Their vow of poverty constrains them from earthly indulgences.”
Errol coughed. “I don’t think heaven will let them in smelling like that. Even when I was a drunk, I let it rain on me every now and then. Someone should find something for the monks to do in the courtyard the next time a storm passes through.”
Cruk inspected Luis’s quarters while they waited in the hall. Satisfied, he waved them in and left. Immediately after his departure, Luis bolted the door. “Last week we found two readers dead outside their quarters.”
“How many have been killed?”
Luis busied himself around his quarters. His hands drifted at the task, tentative and unsure. When he answered, his eyes were wide and haunted. “The conclave held a thousand readers once.” He shook his head. “Some vitality was lost to us; perhaps it is connected to the weakened kingship somehow. With each year, fewer and fewer join our ranks. When I left for Erinon a little over five years ago, our numbers had dwindled to fewer than four hundred.”
He turned away. “Now most of the rooms are empty. Apprentices who have no more than a year in the craft have their pick of journeyman’s quarters.”
The details drifted past Errol as if blown on a breeze. What he hadn’t heard was what scared him. Luis hadn’t answered his question.
“Curse it, how many are left?”
“Two hundred.”
The air in L
uis’s room became stifling, difficult to breathe. “So two hundred have been killed since you left for Callowford?”
The reader shook his head. “No. At least, we don’t think so. There are many factors. They’ve found about a hundred bodies over the last year. As for the rest”—he shrugged—“it is presumed they ran away. The primus and the king have sent guards to the mainland to try to bring them back.”
“At least one was tracking me from Windridge,” Errol said.
“After tomorrow,” Luis said, “we’ll have one more reader to help cast the lots when the king dies.”
Errol strained against the implication. Could he stay? “How many readers will it take?”
Luis shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s never been done before. The lots will have to be perfect. Every benefice in the kingdom will insist on nothing less.”
Errol slept in Luis’s quarters. Sometime close to dawn, the reader woke him. He wore the deep blue robes of his order, and his movements were slow, almost formal.
“Leave your staff here,” Luis said. “Readers do not enter the conclave under arms.”
At a prearranged knock from Cruk, they descended down the broad stone staircase to the main hall of the conclave. Two watchmen stood guard at the huge double doors. As Luis approached, one of them opened the way with an effort. Inside, close to two hundred blue-robed men sat on benches arranged in half-circular terraces around a large dais.
Luis leaned to mutter into Errol’s ear. “This is the meeting hall of the conclave. In this place the primus, first of the conclave, rules supreme.” He nodded toward an ancient-looking man whose blue robes bore a single red stripe down each sleeve. “Not even the archbenefice can overrule the primus, unless at greatest need.” Luis tugged on his sleeve. “Come, I’ll introduce you to Enoch Sten. Address him as Primus. He holds more power than any in the kingdom except the archbenefice and the king himself.”
They descended the steps, moving from the back of the hall toward the dais. Halfway there, the primus took notice of their arrival and smiled.
“Welcome,” he said as they stepped toward the dais. “Secondus, you continue to surprise.”
Secondus? Errol turned toward Luis, who held a look of regret, as if just then realizing he had forgotten to mention something. The news would have to wait; they turned their attention back to the primus.
Tall and spare, his green eyes piercing over his hooked nose, the man appraised Errol. Bits of wispy hair encircled the crown of his head like a halo. He put Errol in mind of an aging falcon.
“How old are you, boy?”
With a start, Errol realized he’d spent his naming day onboard ship. Small wonder considering he’d spent the crossing clutching the rail. “Nineteen, primus.”
“He’s old, Secondus, old to start the training, but strange times call for unorthodox decisions. You have tested him, yes?”
Luis bowed. “Of course. I think, Primus, that Errol’s talent will justify the suspension of orthodoxy.”
The old man nodded, then pushed himself from his seat. He grasped a dark staff held in a stand beside his seat and rapped its metal-shod end three times on the floor. The concussions echoed around the chamber, and all talk ceased.
“Hearken! One comes as a supplicant to our order,” the primus intoned. “He has been tested by Secondus Luis Montari, and found worthy of admission to this body. So say you all?”
A chorus of “Aye” bounced back and forth between the walls.
The primus rapped his staff on the stone floor once. “Hearken! Does anyone have any objections as to why . . .” He paused to look at Errol. “I’ve forgotten your name, boy.”
“Errol Stone.”
Wispy eyebrows lifted in response. “Hmmm. Haven’t had an orphan as a supplicant in some time. Interesting times, indeed.” He turned back to the chamber. “Any objections to admitting Errol Stone to our order?”
Silence rested on the chamber. Errol’s heart thudded his excitement against his chest.
For his part, the primus looked a little bored. Then he rapped his staff twice against the floor and called again in his clear tenor. “Hearken! If any have objections to why Errol Stone of . . .” He stopped with a look toward Luis this time.
“Callowford.”
“Ah, yes. If any have reason why Errol Stone of Callowford may not be admitted to our order, let him speak.”
Again silence fell over the chamber. This time Errol surveyed the audience and found the men occupying the benches wore the same bored expression as the primus.
“Once more,” Luis whispered into Errol’s ear.
“What’s he going to forget this time?” Errol whispered back.
Before Luis could answer, three raps sounded on the floor as the primus straightened his weighted posture to ask the question for the third time. “Hearken! If anyone bears knowledge that would prevent Errol Stone of Callowford from becoming a supplicant to the most holy order of Urlock Auguro, let him speak now or bear the consequences of his silence hereafter.”
Again silence filled the hall. Many of the men on the benches stood in preparation to leave. A few untied their scapula, and one had his robe half off.
“If it please, Primus, I have information that the conclave should consider,” a voice called.
Errol knew that voice. He spun, searching. From behind one column, his eyes glinting with triumph, came the abbot of Windridge.
Morin.
Errol felt a savage grip on his arm. Luis’s breath came warm against his ear.
“Say nothing,” the reader whispered. “Absolutely nothing. Remember, the primus rules here.”
The leader of the order of readers waved a fluttering hand at the abbot. “Come, sir. Let me hear your objection.”
Morin took a deep breath as he surveyed the audience chamber. Every face turned toward the spot he occupied in the corner. He began in a booming voice, “This boy—”
And was interrupted by the sound of the primus’s staff striking the stone. The sound, like a hammer against an anvil, filled the chamber.
The primus smiled at the abbot’s confusion. “You misunderstand, good abbot.” He pointed to a square of stone just in front of his feet. “Come here,” he commanded, “and tell me your objection.”
A glimmer of irritation flashed in the abbot’s eyes, but he kept his smile and made his way to the dais accompanied by his guard. As he approached the primus, he bowed and gave an ingratiating smile before he shot Errol a withering look.
Bile filled Errol’s throat, and he wished nothing more than to crush the abbot with his staff.
“Primus,” Luis said. “There are things I must tell you. I need to speak with you . . . alone.”
The leader of the order regarded Luis, his face grave. “I cannot stop in the middle of confirmation. You know this, Secondus. I must hear the abbot’s objection.”
Luis grabbed Errol by the shoulder and forced him back, interposed himself between him and the abbot.
The abbot of Windridge approached the primus, clearly eager to speak.
The primus held up one hand, and the abbot closed his mouth with a click. “You look familiar, good abbot,” the primus said, speaking low, so only those gathered around him could hear. “But, alas, my memory for names and places seems to be lessened by the accumulation of years. Please introduce yourself.”
The abbot bowed again. “Of course, Primus. Age is wisdom as we say in the cathedral of Windridge.”
The primus’s face wrinkled in disagreement. “I’ve met too many old fools to believe that. Your name, good abbot.”
“Morin Caska,” the abbot said, “of Windridge.”
Primus Sten tilted his head to one side, looking thoughtful. “I think I’ve heard of you. Yes, I’m sure of it. It wasn’t good. However, anyone can bring an objection and be heard.” He held up an admonishing finger. “But be warned; this is the hall of the conclave. Any objection you bring can be quickly tested for its veracity. False accusations will not be toler
ated.”
Morin bowed obsequiously. “I assure you, Primus Sten, that the information I bring is true.”
“Well then. Let’s have it.”
The abbot took a deep breath, as if to proclaim his accusation to all gathered. But at the primus’s censorious glare his voice dropped, and he leveled his accusation in tones smooth as oil-covered water, even as he pointed at Errol. “This man has spent the last months in the employ of a merchant called Naaman Ru. Ostensibly, he was a guard. In reality, he cast lots to help Ru maximize his profits.”
Primus’s white-haired brows furrowed. “Is this true, Errol Stone?”
Luis interposed himself between Errol and his leader. “Primus, I can—”
An upraised finger halted him, and with a motion, the primus directed him to step to one side. “I think it would be best to let the supplicant speak for himself, Secondus. Well, boy?”
The primus’s eyes lay among a network of wrinkles, like bird’s eggs resting in a nest, but they held Errol with their authority. It would be futile to lie. With a crowd of readers at hand, no evasion would be subtle enough to hide what he’d done.
The abbot stared at him in gleeful triumph.
“Yes, Primus,” he said looking down. “It’s true.”
The old man held up a hand at the cacophony that erupted from Luis and the abbot, stilling them. “Casting for profit is a serious charge, lad. Do you have anything to offer in your defense?”
Errol lifted his gaze to meet those green eyes. “Ru kept me imprisoned and under guard. It was either cast lots or die.”
The primus nodded. “Not unheard of. There have always been men who desired the advantage a reader could bring to trade. How did you escape?”
Errol’s heart quickened to a frantic pace inside his chest. “I challenged my way through the guard ranks to first and demanded he release me.”
The abbot’s face twisted. “Surely the merchant would not allow such a valuable asset to walk out of his camp. You against the celebrated Naaman Ru and all his guards?”
A Cast of Stones Page 32