Halko hesitated, then hurried to catch up. “The – the castellanum said I must do as he said or I – I would be sorry. He – he said he would make the privy smith late and that I should take the tin then.”
“Tin! He said you were to take tin?” Gael probed.
Halko nodded. “And I did take it, just as he said. But – but I also took bronze, because I – I did not believe that I would be safe like he – he said.”
“And the bronze would make you safe?” asked Gael gently.
“No – no, but I knew I had to leave, and I – I thought that if I could – could bring bronze to a troll-witch in the – the wastes, she would – would treat me well.”
“Ah,” breathed Gael. He performed a rough tally on his fingers. “Twenty-five days ago” – the day before Gael found the first discrepancy in his tallies, the day before the gong arrived in Belzetarn – “Lord Theron made Martell late, and you stole one ingot of tin, one ingot of bronze. Then Theron made Martell’s scullion late, and you stole another tin, another bronze.” Or what purported to be tin, but was copper disguised. “But on the third day, there was no tin remaining in the evening.” And Keir would have been present, supervising Martell’s notary. “When you could not steal tin, you did not steal bronze.”
Halko nodded.
“Why not?”
“I – I – thought that I – I – could make the Lord Theron pro – protect me, if I – I were caught taking bronze and tin, be – because I could – could tell his theft of tin. All – also – the notarius was – was there. It – it – would have been hard – harder.”
So, Halko might be thoroughly in over his head, but he was not stupid. Gael wondered if the hunter would speak more smoothly, if he were not so scared.
Gael climbed in silence for an interval, pleased that his ankle had not started to click. He continued outlining his guesses: “When I departed the tower, Lord Theron told you to cease, much to your relief.” They reached another landing and moved across it. “But now that I am returned, and all Belzetarn knows me to be returned, Theron demands that you steal again. Am I right?”
“Y – yes,” Halko stuttered.
“Did Theron say how he would make you sorry? If you refused?”
“I – he – I – I’m not a troll. There was a mistake. If he told the regenen, he’d chop off my head like a spy.” Halko was nearly sobbing.
Gael halted abruptly before the next flight of spiraling steps. “And you believed this?”
“I – I – I –”
“The bronze was not for a troll-witch, was it? You imagined you might return from whence you came, and that the ingots would buy you a knight’s favor,” said Gael, wondering.
Halko gulped and nodded.
“Have you not seen your own drifting nodes?” asked Gael.
“I’m not – I’m not –” Halko could not finish his sentence.
“You are not practiced with either the inner sight or with the energea that it sees,” Gael finished for him. “And you have never even opened your inner vision once you became a troll, until I asked it of you just now.” Gael felt sick, imagining the terror Halko must have felt in the wake of the castellanum’s threats. Was still feeling now, confronted with his misdeeds by the secretarius.
“Open your inner sight now,” commanded Gael.
It took Halko longer this time, but Gael could tell when he at last succeeded, because his jaw dropped.
“Ooooooh,” breathed the hunter, opening his closed eyes.
“You see?” said Gael. “Theron lied to you.”
“My head.” Halko gulped. “No one will cut off my head.”
“No,” said Gael firmly.
“What . . . will you do now?” asked Halko.
“Do you usually give the ingots to Theron personally? Or to someone in his confidence?” Gael thought he knew where Halko had stashed Theron’s tin, but he needed to be sure.
Halko shook his head. “No. I put it where he told me.” The hunter’s voice was much steadier than it had been throughout all the preceding conversation, and he explained the usual procedure.
Gael nodded. So. His guess was correct. “Then he will not be surprised when he does not see you tonight?”
Halko shook his head again.
“Good. Then I think . . . you should go directly to your lodge in the bailey. And Halko?” Gael pinned the hunter with a direct stare. “Stay out of the tower. If Theron comes to you, seek your opteon. He can protect you, even from the castellanum.”
Halko’s shoulders straightened. He bowed awkwardly. “Thank you . . . so much, my lord Secretarius.”
The hunter appeared to be waiting for a formal dismissal.
“I will finish this business tonight,” Gael informed him. “You will be safe even without your opteon by the morrow. Although . . . keep away from my smithies! Or you will not be safe from me.” He allowed his lips to curve upward. “You may go.”
Halko stood not upon that permission, lengthening his stride to take the stairs two at a time. Gael was interested to note that the hunter chose the upward direction. No doubt he had a getaway route well planned.
Gael gathered himself and his thoughts.
He had about three different places he wanted to be right now, but only one could not wait. Theron possessed a gift for finding weakness and exploiting it. The threat he’d held over Halko’s head lacked validity, but whatever he was using to force Barris would be real. And it wasn’t the promise to abuse the kitchen scullions either, no matter Barris’ claims. It would be something much worse.
The only question was whether Theron, with his weasel’s nose for the undercurrents in Belzetarn, was already acting to enforce his threat against Gael’s friend.
* * *
As Gael crossed the lower great hall, he saw that the tables and benches were already in place and the salt bowls set out. The afternoon was later than he’d realized, giving way to early evening. Scullions and porters thronged the Regenen Stair, bearing ornate chairs for the high tables, as well as trays of plates and serving spoons. The regenen’s servery was not yet clogged with servers, but it would be soon. The cacophony of clanging spoons and shouted orders coming through the hatch along with the aroma of roast fowl and caramelized cherries indicated the night’s feast neared readiness.
When he peered through the hatch, he saw that not only were all three hearths in use, but the broiling pit as well. Multitudes of boys turned more spits than Gael could count, while the decanens arranged beds of greens on platters to receive the roasted birds when they were done.
Relief washed through Gael as he caught sight of Barris, alert and well, cropped brown hair tidy, issuing directions to the almost constant stream of underlings that approached him and then veered away to obey his orders. Whatever dread consequence Theron planned for the cook, he’d not set it in motion yet.
Barris, despite the fever pitch of the kitchen, noticed Gael’s arrival almost immediately. He nodded across the bustling space, waved a decanen to take an opteon’s place between two of the hearths, and gestured for the opteon to stand in for Barris himself.
Gael studied his friend as Barris threaded his way to the door beside the servery hatch. When last he’d set eyes on the cook, Barris had been defeated, guilt-ridden, and slumping. He looked much better now, authoritative and confident, apparently unfazed by the sight of the friend he’d betrayed.
Gael forced the frown he felt gathering off his face. He’d thought he presented a calm front, but what had Barris perceived that caused him to break off from his most paramount duty to talk with Gael?
When Barris reached the door and opened it, he neither stood within its frame to begin conversation nor stepped out to the servery, but beckoned Gael within. Gael followed him along the kitchen wall, dodging around a decanen folding nut meats within croquettes of nut butter at a side counter, and then ducking through a small doorway on the endwall. They climbed a spiral stair so narrow that Gael’s right shoulder brushed the new
el post, while his left touched the outer wall. One landing up, Barris unlocked another small door and gestured Gael through it.
The chamber within was a generous wedge-shaped triangle, the wall with glassed-in arrow slits very curving, like the outer rim of a pastry. A scattering of divans and chairs upholstered in dark brown suede clustered on pale green matting. Banner-like hangings of deep green leather framed rectangles of stone wall carved in abstract spiraling designs.
Gael felt as though he’d stumbled across one of the forest shrines erected and then abandoned by the ancient tribes who dwelt in the Hamish wilds before ever the Hamish folk came to them. So this was Barris’ receiving room. Gael had never entered the cook’s quarters. Somehow they’d done most of their conferring in the servery outside Barris’ kitchen or else within Gael’s sitting room. He wasn’t quite sure why, but so it had always fallen out.
Barris took up a stance beside one of the casements, the indirect light limning one cheekbone and the side of his upcurving nose, making the hidden tension in his face visible.
“Sit or stand as you please,” offered Barris, offhandedly. “I understand you may –” Breaking off, he shook his head.
Gael thought about standing, uncertain whether Barris doubted Gael’s forbearance – the obvious reason for his hesitance – or if perhaps Barris himself no longer welcomed Gael’s presence. Then he sighed and sat. It had been a long day and looked to continue even later.
Barris nodded, his stance softening a touch. “I’ve had time to think and to realize that Theron wasn’t just accumulating tin to use for bribes. He was targeting you, wasn’t he?”
“That seems likely. I intend to press him for explanations presently.”
Barris nodded again. “Then it’s as well that I make my confession now. The less leverage he has, the more you have, the better.”
“You are still my friend,” said Gael.
Barris’ jaw bunched and his shoulders stiffened. He moved away from the window casement, pacing impatiently to the next embrasure over, and then back again, his steps choppy and short. “Then you’re a better troll than I am,” he growled. His breath came hard through his nostrils. “You fool! I stole from you, lending myself to your enemy.”
“Then you owe me atonement,” said Gael composedly, “and the grace to accept my forgiveness, do not you think?”
“Hells!” Barris cursed.
“You are going to tell me the whole truth, are you not? Unlike last time?” Gael couldn’t quite keep the hint of sweet malice out of his tone.
Barris flinched and swallowed. Then swallowed again. Drawing a rasping breath, he finally pushed past his disinclination to speak, but his first words seemed rather beside the point to Gael.
“The castellanum tapped me to cook for the regenen early. My skill at the hearth stood out, and I prided myself on understanding the scullion boys better than the fusty old opteon then presiding over the kitchens. I thought I could manage the trolls better than he did and that I would present more subtle dishes for the regenen’s table.” Barris paused. “The castellanum thought so, too.”
“You’re talking of Theron? This was not before his time?” asked Gael.
Barris grimaced. “Theron was new come to his office as well,” he said. “Else he might have judged more aptly.”
Gael waited, letting the silence stand. If this room of green and brown with its impression of standing stones were indeed a shrine in the forest, there would be no breeze.
“I thought my sympathy for the boys would be enough, that they would attend well to their duties and obey me, because I liked them and they liked me. I didn’t understand . . . that even good boys can be impulsive, irresponsible, lazy. And I didn’t understand that I could grow so angry.”
Barris paused again before continuing. “They needed more rules than I gave them, and punishments for when the rewards failed. I didn’t realize that until after the most defiant of them baited me into beating him.”
Barris swallowed.
Gael repressed an abrupt desire to avoid what came next.
Barris continued, “We stood before the largest hearth, and he darted away from me blindly after the first lash – too heavy a lash – and fell. He tumbled into the flames of the new-built fire. It hadn’t had time to die down yet.”
Horror lurked in Barris’ brown eyes, as though he had just that instant let the lash fall on the shoulders of that poor scullion boy. Gael suspected a similar horror lurked in his own. His friend had intended to punish, not to maim. Or kill. Had the boy died? The burns must have been terrible.
Gael’s heart hurt as he considered the boy’s probable agony and Barris’ agony at his dreadful mistake.
“Gael, I’ve never deserved your friendship. Were Belzetarn not a troll stronghold, I’d have been banished for that innocent boy’s death. But Carbraes holds banishing the banished afresh to be redundant. His standards are less stringent. I doubt Theron even told him of the incident.”
Barris’ self-disgust had given way to sadness, but his gaze met Gael’s straightly. “But Theron would certainly have told you. That was his threat. And I didn’t want you to know. It was long before you arrived in Belzetarn.”
Gael struggled to find words that might comfort Barris, that would soothe the ache in his soul. But there were no words for that. He knew it only too well.
He made his own gaze as direct as his friend’s, determined to give truth for truth. “Earlier this afternoon, I sanctioned an experiment in healing that resulted in Dreas’ death. By accident.”
All the poisoned regret in Barris’ stance turned to rigid shock. “What!”
Guilt shivered through Gael’s belly. He should have prepared Barris for such news, but he’d been thinking of it as a way to convey his understanding and sympathy, rather than as the dire jolt it would be.
“Who will command the regenen’s legions?” demanded Barris.
Gael got to his feet. “I don’t know.”
“Sias in her labor!” swore Barris. “With Dreas gone, Carbraes himself could be unseated!”
Gael remembered the regenen’s recent threat to strike Gael’s head from his body personally. “I should not wager on that, if I were you,” he said.
Barris reined in his consternation, returning to the matter at hand. “Tell me what you wish from me,” he urged.
“How should I repudiate you for manslaughter when I am guilty of it myself?” said Gael, thinking of the Ghriana scout he’d condemned on the day he fought Dreben.
Impatience leaked into Barris’ voice. “For my betrayal of you, Gael.”
Gael suppressed another sigh. “You remain my friend. Do I remain yours?”
Barris’ eyes widened. “Of course, but –”
“Figure it out,” rapped Gael.
Barris swallowed. “You don’t want my regret? No, of course not,” he answered himself. “You already have that. What you want, what I want to give you” – he looked down, then back up – “is my assurance that I won’t do anything like it again.” He nodded. “Which I won’t. The next time someone tries to blackmail me, I’ll tell him to do his worst. Ah, hells, Gael! I’m a fool, and that’s being unfair to fools. Will you forgive me?”
Gael couldn’t help smiling. “Gladly.” Somehow, it was going to be all right. Somehow, he had forgiven Barris, even though he’d wondered if he could before. But there was one more thing he needed to know.
Barris nipped in first. “You know where Theron is keeping his stolen goods? I always handed them directly to him.” Barris’ brown eyes – normally light-filled, and light-filled now with relief – went flat. “Get that bastard dead, Gael. If you don’t get him, he’ll get you. He means to.”
“I know,” said Gael.
“That he aims to take your head? Or that you’ve got him?” asked Barris impatiently.
“Both,” said Gael. “The one thing I need to know is, why did Theron have you steal copper ingots, in addition to tin, and then disguise them energetical
ly as tin?”
Barris frowned. “But he didn’t.”
* * *
The servery was clogged with scullions when Gael retraced his steps from Barris’ quarters. Boys pushed at the back of the crowd to get their turn at the hatch, boys jostled elbows at the hatch itself and scrambled to fill their trays, boys with loaded trays shouted and shoved their way through the mass to get to the Regenen Stair.
Gael dismissed a nascent idea of threading his way through the kitchens to access the deserted Lake Stair instead. He’d have every cook from the sauce master to the fruitery decanen yelling at him to get out, including even Barris, who was back at his command in the regenen’s kitchen. The evening feast was about to begin.
In any case he needed a messenger, and a clump of them waited by the door to the wood scullery, ready to run between the kitchens and the great halls as required by the cooks and the servers.
Gael tapped the nearest on the shoulder. “You! Boy!”
The lad’s eyes grew large when he realized who had accosted him. The press was too close about him to permit a bow, but he made one anyway, bumping into his annoyed cohorts with rump and head.
“My lord Secretarius!” he gasped.
Gael drew breath to give a message for the regenen, but then let it go without speaking.
Before his journey to Olluvarde, he might have sent this request by messenger. Even this noon, when he’d just returned, Carbraes would have welcomed Gael’s plea. But now, in the wake of Dreas’ death, Carbraes’ response . . . might lack the goodwill Gael required.
And Gael was late in waking Keir. Hells! He’d wanted to do that personally, but this messenger would have to go to Keir, not Carbraes. Gael must speak with Carbraes in person for the plan he was evolving to have any chance of success.
He gave the necessary instructions to the messenger, who provoked more complaint – from both his fellows and the kitchen scullions – when he followed his nod by ducking low enough to ram his way through the mob.
“Where does the regenen bide?” Gael asked the messenger cursing next to him. No doubt Carbraes would be making his way to one of the great halls, but there was no knowing which he had chosen.
The Tally Master Page 35