by Dora Machado
“Lord Hato.” She curtseyed and left, face blank, back straight, displaying the dignity and grace of a highborn lady.
Hato took in a deep breath. He shouldn’t have lost his temper like that, but his frustration had gotten the best of him. The woman was hurting Laonia’s cause, distracting his lord from his duty, endangering his life. The unexpected delivery of Hillisel’s strip had further thrown him off kilter. How he loathed surprises. They killed the unwary all too often.
He wished she would have never happened to Bren. She would bring more pain to his lord’s life, he was sure. But as she mounted the steps, cool and elegant as a queen, he caught a glimpse of her strength and understood what his lord saw in her.
The realization didn’t help. On the contrary, it made his old heart ache.
* * *
Hato turned to his work. He laid down the two new strips and, opening his journal, reread the last sentence of Robert’s riddle aloud. “The wicked shall prevail.” Next he read the last sentence of Lambage’s strip. “The wicked will be upheld.” Finally, he reviewed the closing sentence of Hillisel’s find. “Just as surely as the wicked will win.”
The three verses closed in the same way and shared the same reference to the wicked. They belonged to the same voice. The form lacked the discipline and consistency of a trained poet, but it had a rhythmical quality to it, a pleasant if not regular ring to the ear.
Hato moved the two strips around, placing one on top of the other, then reversing the order. The jagged edges didn’t match. Hato wagered the two verses belonged in the same scroll, although not consecutively. What were the chances that Robert’s riddle would have fit neatly in between?
A memory of Robert formed in his mind. Hato recalled the young man’s fiery hair, his freckled face and wide smile. If there had been an optimist among Edmund’s brood, it had been Robert.
A scholar at heart, Robert had spent the last years of his life scouring libraries throughout, in the hopes of learning how to defeat the curse. It had been Robert who had first discovered the manuscript Hato had stolen from Tolone’s library. Hato wondered what Robert would have made of his theft. The kid would have probably gotten a good laugh out of Hato’s tale.
Hato set aside the verses and thumbed through the old manuscript on his makeshift desk. Mythology of Curses. The title itself was worrisome, but the pages offered a unique account of different types of curses and spells, as well as some discussion on the requirements and structure of a proper curse.
It was an ancient manuscript, succinct, straight to the point and only a few pages long. It had already been crumbling by the time Robert had found it in Tolone, handwritten by someone called Shehana and, sadly, unfinished. It was hardly a reliable source, but it was the best they had been able to find. Robert had been thrilled.
Hato flipped to one of the heavily marked pages. By studying the different accounts, Hato and Robert had been able to identify three different ways of defeating a curse. The first way involved what Hato termed the simple solutions, which entailed either burning the written curse or attempting to kill the curse’s conjurer, both perilous ventures that usually ended in tragedy for everyone involved.
The second way of defeating a curse involved redeeming it. This was by far the most popular choice in the accounts that Hato read. It also required knowing the identity of the conjurer and understanding why the curse had been cast in the first place, in order to be able to right the wrong powering the curse. Unable to figure out who had conjured Edmund’s curse or why, redeeming the curse had been impossible.
The third way of defeating a curse was more rare and vague than the other two, but also more promising in Hato’s estimation. It entailed defusing the curse by identifying remedy clauses within the curse or, better yet, by finding a related curse by the same conjurer which contained specific provisions capable of defusing all of the author’s curses. But Hato and Robert had never been able to find another curse by the same author. Until now. Could these verses belong to the same author? Could they somehow neutralize the original curse?
Robert and Hato had quarreled endlessly about Shehana’s manuscript. In the end, the theory had yielded no practical applications to defeat the curse, only general knowledge. Unbeknown to Hato, Robert had turned his scholarly attention elsewhere. He had found a riddle hidden in his father’s library. Robert had been convinced that the riddle was either part of the original curse or the defusing curse he had been searching for. He had not told Hato about his find right away. Instead, he had studied it in detail, convincing himself that it was stylistically connected to his father’s curse and therefore capable of neutralizing it.
However, Robert wasn’t about to dismiss the simple solution. Since part of him believed that the riddle could have been a lost verse from the original curse, the temptation of getting rid of the curse proved too strong to resist. Without consulting Hato, Robert burned the strip the day before the first anniversary of his brother Ethan’s death. When he didn’t die as everyone expected, he told Hato and his brothers that he had defeated the curse.
If Robert’s strengths had been his optimism and his scholarly brilliance, his weakness had been his bloated self-confidence. He fell ill the next year, on the second anniversary of Ethan’s death, dashing everyone’s hopes and imposing a new grim death schedule on the line of Uras. His illness followed the same pattern that had killed Ethan. On the night of Robert’s death, Hato had rushed to jot down the words of the fateful riddle that only Robert—in the grips of his madness—could accurately interpret.
“The search for the cure is the hunt for the Goddess’s mark upon a woman,” Robert had said, right before he went into the rigor. “The mark must be true and tested. If the mark is true, then the woman must undergo the trial. If she survives, well, then, perhaps there can be some kind of hope.”
Hato had been in shock when Robert explained what the trial entailed. Harald had been mortified. Bren had been horrified. Then Robert had died his terrible death, leaving Harald, Bren and Hato with the abhorrent task of unleashing the hunt’s tragic legacy.
“I wish you hadn’t burnt the strip, my lad,” Hato murmured, setting the manuscript aside and staring at the pieces of vellum stretched on the table. But talking to the dead wasn’t going to bring back the missing strip. It wasn’t going to save the line of Uras either. How many other verses belonged in the scroll? Where were they? And could they really comprise the basis of a defusing curse?
The strongest evidence that the riddle and the related strips mattered came from Robert’s madness, from the ague-fueled revelations that confirmed the connection. On the other hand, if Ernilda was correct, the strips predated the curse by at least ten years. What if Robert was wrong? What if there was no connection between the curse and the scroll? What if Hato was wasting valuable time pursuing a madman’s dream?
He had to concentrate on the facts. An extraordinary scroll. A collector’s item for sure. When and how had Edmund acquired it? Was it already in strips when he got it? Or had Edmund cut it to pieces? And if he did, why? Had Edmund sent the strip that Hillisel had recovered from the temple’s archives at the same time that he sent the strip to Ernilda?
Hato tried to remember. It would have been almost twenty years ago. Who was the Pious at the thirteenth temple then? His memories were as stiff as a rusted wheel. He saw the man’s face in his mind before he remembered his name. Pious Odolorus. He had been a great friend of Edmund’s. If Hato was correct, then Edmund had chosen to send strips of a fine manuscript to his good friend and his lover, both people he trusted.
Ernilda considered her strip a parting gift. Pious Odolorus had passed a long time ago, so Hato couldn’t ask him. Had Edmund sent portions of the scroll to other friends as well? And considering the complications of highborn politics, who had Edmund trusted outside of Laonia in addition to Ernilda and Odolorus?
It was a question Hato couldn’t answer with any kind of certainty. He needed a new angle. He decided to make a list.
He dipped the quill in the ink pot. What was happening in Edmund’s life nearly twenty years ago?
Edmund had been Lord of Laonia for twenty-three years back then. He would have been forty-five years old. All his children had been born. His wife was already dead. He had just defeated Riva for the second time at the battle of the Narrows. A peace council was called at Teos. The crops had been good for many years in a row.
Hato remembered that, after the second battle of the Narrows, he had been away from the seed house for a while. He’d had problems with his estate. A wandering spouse, lack of supervision and a bad administrator had weakened the estate’s yields. It had taken him some time to set things to order. It had been a better year for Edmund than for Hato.
Edmund, you fool, why didn’t you confide in me?
Line by line, name by name, Hato scribbled down everything he could remember. When he was done, he double-checked to make sure all of those names had been part of Teos’s inquiries. They had.
Exasperated, Hato returned his attention to the verses, rereading the sentences, trying to make sense of each word, knowing that no matter what he thought he was reading, without the madness, the verses made no sense. Waiting for the madness to understand the verses might have been palatable if Edmund had had twelve sons and if Hato didn’t care for any of them.
As it was, Edmund had only one son left, and Hato didn’t think his old heart could endure the pain of losing yet another lord.
Chapter Thirty-nine
LUSIELLE MARCHED OUT OF HATO’S LAIR and up the steps, rubbing her neck. The old man had a violent streak. As soon as she arrived at her counter beneath the awning, she began to work on a couple of new preparations, even though she couldn’t put what Hato said out of her mind.
Hato had given her more information than he knew. Sure, he had been rough and his insults cut deeply, but that hadn’t been what shocked her.
No.
Her own visceral reaction to learning about Bren’s engagement to Eleanor is what had taken her by surprise. Lusielle knew better in her head. The code, the law, common sense all said that those two made for the ideal alliance—the perfect highborn union.
Why had they waited this long? And why did the knowledge bother her so?
News of the engagement tempered the thrill of her other discoveries. First, Hato had said that Bren was “smitten” with her. Smitten. As in besotted.
How could he be smitten with her, when he was engaged to someone as striking as Tolone’s lady? What could he see in a baseborn remedy mixer like her?
Lusielle was not beautiful, or wealthy, or powerful. And yet, reason aside, she could sense the attraction that bound them, the need in him, the storm that her presence seemed to unleash in his eyes.
Was smitten the same exasperating feeling that had been pestering her, keeping her from making good decisions for herself? Was it this softening of the heart, making her care for a stranger and muddling her wits? Was it this reckless disregard for reason, eroding her will and weakening her resolve?
She should leave. Now. Before things got even more complicated.
But no matter what Bren said, he was not a cold-blooded killer. Cold-blooded killers didn’t suffer when they caused harm. Cold-blooded killers didn’t punish themselves by branding their faces with heated metal.
Hato was wrong.
Bren hadn’t burned his face to remember who he was. He had branded himself as a warning to others and to remember what he was, a man who hated himself, a man whose duty was in conflict with his conscience.
Her last discovery of the day was by far the most shocking, and it melded nicely with her first. Bren wasn’t going to kill her. That’s what Hato had said. For reasons Lusielle could still not understand, the decision grated on Hato. She tried to look at the whole situation with caution and yet she couldn’t prevent the sense of elation coursing through her. He wasn’t going to kill her because—betrothal and all—he was smitten with her.
Now, if she could only figure out why the verses she had spotted on Hato’s desk and journal were important to Bren.
Lusielle infused her devil’s claw tincture with the extract of the serrata tree and flavored it with ginger, turmeric and honey. The potion would alleviate pain and help reduce the swelling affecting Hato’s joints. In addition, she also mixed a eucalyptus rub. Hato might be a belligerent highborn, but he was hurting. She had seen how he limped when he walked.
Some might think she shouldn’t help him, but Lusielle followed Izar’s ways and Hato was loyal to Bren. Besides, in a roundabout way, Hato had told Lusielle what his lord had not been willing or able to say. And after what she had learned from Hato, she had no place in her heart for grudges.
Chapter Forty
SEVERO WAS IN A FOUL MOOD. He hadn’t been able to ride with his lord to Konia. His horse was lame again. Having to stay behind was maddening enough. Add to that the boredom of passing the hours confined to the deck of a damn barge, and you had not just one very frustrated Laonian on board, but a whole bunch of them. It was time to furnish a little diversion.
He walked up to the woman’s awning and stood above her, trying to unnerve her. “What foul poison is our resident sorceress brewing now?”
She flashed him a sullen look. “This wicked concoction is bound to turn your lord Hato into a toad,” she said, continuing her work. “It might soothe the pain in his knee also, but that’s only secondary to the fun of watching him hop around.”
“Do your potions heal animals too?” Severo asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never tried. Why do you ask?”
“I couldn’t go with my lord,” Severo said. “My horse is lame again.”
“And you proud fool can’t get yourself to ask nicely?” The woman scoffed. “Do you want me to take a look?”
“Only if it suits you,” Severo said with an inward grin but a blank face.
He watched as she murmured a few words over her preparations and then poured the elixir and the rub she had concocted for Hato into some earthenware containers. She was efficient. You had to give her that. But she was also strange, odd in ways Severo couldn’t explain, and uncommon by any standard.
And that dream—that dream where she had come to him, urging him to betray his lord— it was a nightmare Severo wouldn’t soon forget. Or forgive.
What gave her the right to intrude in his dreams? How had she managed to capture his imagination like that? What strange power did she hold over men that she could seduce them without even trying?
Severo shook off the shiver chilling his bones. He wasn’t going to allow a mere woman, a common baseborn at that, to frighten him whether he was asleep or awake.
She asked one of the monkey men to deliver the remedies to Hato below deck, with instructions to drink the potion with all his meals and rub his knee with the oil every night. Then her witch’s eyes fell on Severo.
“Alright,” she said, standing up. “Let’s take a look at your horse.”
Severo escorted the woman to the aft deck where the horses were kept and where, with the exception of the men on guard duty and the ones who had gone with Lord Bren, the balance of the Twenty were lounging about. He winked to the men, then stood aside and let the woman through.
Severo’s steed was a dark beauty with hooves as wide as saucers and haunches taller than the woman’s head. He was damn proud of it. He took excellent care of his horse. Other than the limp, the beast appeared to be in perfect health. It scented the air as the woman approached, contracting its nostrils as if she stunk, following her progress with a fractious black eye.
“He seems surly,” the woman said, “kind of like you.”
The other men laughed.
“Funny,” Severo said, wondering who was going to get the best laughter.
The beast’s lustrous coat quivered beneath the woman’s hands when she leaned over to examine its foreleg. The swelling rose above the fetlocks. She reached out to feel the swelling, but as she landed a hand on the
leg, the horse nipped her on the arse, sending her squealing, right into Severo’s arms.
The men cackled. Severo laughed so hard that his belly ached. “That was just too easy,” he said, between chuckles. “You should have seen your face ….”
She rubbed her aggrieved posterior. “And you should’ve told me that the beast bites.”
“All beasts bite, sweetheart,” Severo said, still laughing. “And so that you know, I’ve stolen quite a few kisses from the ladies this year.”
“Liar.” The woman shoved him aside. “Get out of my way.”
Severo was still laughing. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to continue my exam,” she said. “Not for you, mind you, but because of your poor horse. And for your lord as well. He deserves a little more than a bunch of ill-equipped jesters for company.”
Ouch. That hurt Severo’s pride.
Any other wench would have stomped away and locked herself in the cabin, but not this one. Severo was mildly impressed. He had concocted the entire thing as a trick to pass the time and relieve the Twenty’s boredom. Well, maybe he had done it to take revenge on her too, for intruding in his dreams. But this woman was of a different mettle.
A little crowd gathered around her as she returned her attention to the horse.
“It’s hot,” she said palpating the swelling. “Have you been putting compresses on it?”
“Four times a day,” Severo said.
“Has the swelling gone down any?” she asked.
“It’s gotten bigger.”
“Did it start as a knot?”