Her lip curled as her eyes flicked towards the outer room. “You have enough to think about.”
“As you say, lady.”
Her attention returned to the book. The whispered, staggering reading was excruciating. My fingers twitched. Rude. And unkind. It was tortured reading, but she was reading, and she’d fought as hard as I had to obtain the skill. Harder. I’d pushed my way into Vere to get away from a family who no longer wanted me. Mistress Baynor had wrested reading from a drunken, despised half-brother.
Hal glanced towards the front room. “It’s rather quiet out there, lady. Would you mind if I...?”
“With Domon, quiet is bad.” Mistress Baynor gave him a hard look. “Go, by all means.” After he left, she turned to me. “So you are examining the books.”
“Yes.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Then let me tell you.”
I slapped my hands down on the table to either side of the book. “I can’t discuss this with you.”
“Of course.” She scrolled one hand in the air. “So just listen.”
I glanced at the doorway but Hal did not return. No help there. “Go ahead.” She was going to anyway.
“Something has happened, something so fearful even my brother is forced to consider looking in books for help.”
“Ha.” It slipped out. “You know your brother better than that.”
“Forced to tolerate others looking, then.”
I said nothing, but my face must have told tales. She gave a brisk nod.
“Rumors followed Orlo from Boltar. Stories of an enormous ship.” She leaned closer. “Most people laugh at them. For now. I do not. Not when Orlo rode in all haste to Elbany.” She closed the recipe book. I held my breath, watching, but she handled the volume as gently and carefully as a clerk. “He returned with you. And left you here with these books. I think—” she lowered her voice, although there was no one to overhear—”we have reason to fear...” One shoulder lifted in a half-shrug, almost apologetically. “...something. An attack, perhaps.” Her face set, as if expecting me to argue with her or dismiss what she’d said. “And—our enemy must be one we’ve not faced before.” Her gaze flicked to the books surrounding us. “That we know.”
I sat, silenced by surprise and admiration. She had puzzled it out, from so little. As well or better than the scholars at Vere, and she was in a kitchen. “You are right, princess of Ragonne.”
“I am no princess. I am not even anyone’s lady, despite Hal’s courtesy.” Her voice had not grown louder. “I prefer it. I married a man I love. What princess can say as much?”
I jerked back as if slapped.
She looked baffled. Then contrition flooded her face. “I did not mean...I apologize.”
My anger dispelled. The mortification proved more difficult.
“Do we know...when?” she asked at last.
“One year.” My voice was almost steady. “They’ve given us a year.”
“A year?” Her eyebrows climbed. “Why would they give us a year to prepare?”
I mentally threw up my hands, deciding to share what I knew and hoping Mistress Baynor was as trustworthy as she seemed. This did not improve my mood. I’d sworn to keep the letter secret and the Roth had not excepted his aunts. But she would be a greater danger with incomplete information, seeking more elsewhere. “You’ve already guessed much. But you must keep this secret.”
“That goes without saying,” she snapped. “I ask not to satisfy my curiosity but because I try to give my brother cooler-headed advice than he gets from the battle-hungry retainers he surrounds himself with.”
“Philip asks your opinion about political matters?”
“Of course not!” Her voice was frigid. “But I give it. It is difficult, as you might imagine, to do so without him realizing.”
I thought of my interview with Philip. “Yes.”
“I take it you are searching for information about our new enemy,” she said.
“Not just Ragonne’s enemy. They sent letters to Logan and Elbany as well. Perhaps others. There’s no way to find out without revealing our danger.”
“I can see that.” Moving the book from her lap to the table, she went to the doorway to look out at Hal and Domon.
“The Roth sent me to learn anything I could. Where it is. Why they would attack us—”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
I glared, annoyed at the interruption, even more at the insinuation. “The letter—”
“What did it say?” she demanded, coming closer.
I pulled a deep breath. Was I this imperious? Probably. “I saw all three letters.” I held up a hand to forestall another intrusion. “Elbany’s, obviously, came to us. Lord Orlo brought Ragonne’s as proof. Logan’s clerk recently died and he sent the letter to Rothbury to be read. All were the same except the greeting.” I recited the message.
Her fingers rapped her forearm. “Interesting.”
“Yes. The demands, and the delay, suggest conquest is not their aim. Or not their sole aim.”
“If you’ve described it accurately—”
“I described it exactly,” I said with heat. “I memorized it.”
She glanced down, noticed her tapping fingers, and stilled them. “Of course. It’s just odd. Restore the neglected Henrican observances. Saradena’s,” her mouth formed the new word but did not voice it, “quarrel seems to be philosophical. Or perhaps religious.” She paced towards the far wall, turned, stalked back. “Do you suppose...the Cynric?” It could scarcely be called a whisper. “Could they know?”
“How could they?” I shuddered. It was not clear even to me whether my question was directed towards the Saradenians or the Cynric. I knew that the stench of blood and iron had not flooded the room like a fast tide, but I smelled them nonetheless. “The Cynric have been gone so long. We don’t know much about them.”
But what we did was enough. More than enough. More like a memory than an imagining, I heard weeping, the sing of a blade as it arced downward, the shrieks of a child bound too tightly to flinch. They caught every drop in wide silver basins, gleaming beneath the half-moon required for their doings. From that blood, moon-bathed and shadowed both, could be called forth cyfargrym, power that moved sideways to the world, effecting things contrary to nature and beyond craft. Or so it was said. That name was nearly forgotten, but whispers yet ran about wicked magic, although more commonly now to deny it once existed than to fear it might return. “The Roth’s sister, who married the king of Logan not long before I came to Elbany—”
“I know,” she interrupted dryly.
I ignored her. Certainly she would be aware of her niece’s marriage. The location, not the marriage itself, had been my aim in mentioning it. “—says that in Logan there are noblewomen who do not believe the Cynric existed.”
She looked so outraged I blinked in the sudden heat of it. “They are utter fools.”
“I did not say I was among them,” I said. “We have long memories in Bruster.”
“But not so long as to remember Saradena.”
“No.” I looked down at the table. “Your thought about the Cynric is a good one. Something Saradena knew, or thought they knew, prompted these letters. Perhaps the Cynric. Perhaps something else. I’ll watch for information about the Cynric as I read.” But I rather hoped I wouldn’t find any.
She cocked her head as if struck by a sudden thought. “Why are you here, and not Vere?”
“The Roth was going to send me to Vere.” I looked towards the doorway as if hearing a noise from the outer room but really trying not to show my relief at being in Ragonne instead, despite mistreated books and Domon. “Lord Orlo suggested I write to someone I trust, asking him to check Vere’s library while I came to Ragonne and searched Philip’s.”
“You’re here, so I take it there was someone at Vere you trust?”
“Magistre Poll.”
Her lips pursed. �
��Your maestro?”
Even if I’d mastered a noble’s formal disinterest, I couldn’t have concealed my shock.
She went on. “The more Domon figured out I envied his time at Vere, the more he bragged about it. He explained how the tutoring system works. It makes sense you would trust your mentor.”
The scholars would not have been pleased to know Domon had told an outsider about Vere’s internal workings.
She laughed. “Domon was not supposed to tell me such things, was he?”
“No.”
She crossed the room. “I suspect you did not mind not returning to Vere.”
“No,” I said again, then went on without thinking. “It could be worse. If I find nothing here, I may be sent to Ferrant.” The next instant I clamped my teeth. I sounded mithering and frightened. The Roth’s clerk could be neither.
Her brow furrowed. “Other than abject cruelty, of which I have never suspected him, what reason could the Roth have?”
I was surprised by the sympathy and abashed at having seemed to solicit it. “Ferrant has books.”
“Do they? Interesting.” Her fingers began tapping again, this time against the bookshelf closest to her. “I assume you do not already know what is in them?” She continued without waiting for a response. “No, certainly not. Francis is not a man to allow his wife to read. Particularly if she would enjoy it. Hmm. Douglas would have to ask a favor of Ferrant and risk revealing our trouble, which he will not care to do until he has no other choice. Yes, I see.”
She noticed her fingertips beating a rapid pulse, scowled, and stopped. Clearly inactivity did not suit her. Just as clearly, she’d been taught it was not ladylike to fidget. The façade of calm I’d seen in her kitchen must have been the result of practice and occupation, but nonetheless a façade. “Let me give you my advice, more straightforwardly than I give it to my brother.” She flashed a brief smile. “Get Hal to help. You can trust him.” She glanced around at the shelves. “My suspicion is there’s nothing here to find. You need to eliminate this possibility as quickly as possible, return to Elbany, and ask the Roth for his next command. Then, almost certainly, go to Ferrant. I am sorry,” she said, sounding as if she were.
“I swore to tell no one. I’ve already broken that oath. I don’t care to again.”
“Secrecy is not as important as success. The Roth will forgive if you do what is necessary.”
One hand stole to my braid, fingering the tuft at its end. “I am a clerk, not a politician. I hate this.”
She laughed. I looked up. She laughed louder, apparently at the look on my face. “You may not like it. I’ll believe that. But you are a princess of Bruster—”
“Were.”
“Are.” She strode back. “No one can efface your blood. You dislike the politics but you can’t say you don’t understand them.” She leaned closer. “Right now, you are whatever the Roth needs you to be. Most of all, he needs you to be fast. Use Hal.”
“I’ll think about it.”
She nodded crisply, as if I’d agreed. She sat again and turned her attention back to the recipe book.
Be fast. Do the search. Use Hal. I trusted Mistress Baynor enough to tell her my task. At least when she’d already guessed most of it. Did I trust her enough to take her advice about how to conduct it?
Chapter X
I spent the next two days reading as quickly as possible, for as many hours a day as I could keep my eyes open. Unasked, Mistress Baynor arranged for meals to be sent to the library.
I found nothing. Not a passing comment, a snippet of a sentence, or a marginal notation referring to Saradena, let alone a full flood of information clarifying their grievance.
The weather did not help. Low-lying Ragonne, like the rest of Valenna, was warmer than Elbany or Bruster, which were mountainous. On the third day after my arrival, Ragonne’s spring turned unusually hot, and the library sweltered. I heard myself growl as I once more wiped away sweat trickling down my forehead before it could fall onto the book.
It was just as well I was doing much of my work late into the night, when no one was around for me to snap at.
***
The heat had an unexpected benefit: Domon spent less time in the library. Most days he arrived barely in time for noon-tide and left well before supper. It meant I saw little of Hal, but I considered that an acceptable sacrifice.
The hot misery was also worth enduring to spend so much time alone with so many books.
By the morning of the fifth day after my arrival, I’d finished half the travel narratives. I’d risen especially early and was well into my second manuscript before breakfast arrived. I heard the door open, a tray sliding into the outer table, and the door closing again. Then, after a few moments, a sound like an ox-cart bumping along a cobbled street.
I looked up, around, and finally down to find the source. “Ah.” I leaned in my chair to scratch the cat’s head. “You have the loudest purr I’ve ever heard.”
Thus encouraged, she jumped up onto the table. Not onto the manuscript. “Good girl.” I slipped my hand under her chin. The purr rumbled louder. “How many mice have you killed today?”
When at last I turned back to the book, she stepped into my lap, turned a graceful circle, and settled down, tucking her tail neatly over her front paws.
The library was stifling, my shift and dress sweat-sticky already. Too hot for a furry, living blanket. But I liked cats. They were common around a castle, boon companions in the fight against vermin. They were particularly encouraged at Vere, helping keep the page-nibblers away. This one looked enough like Magistre Poll’s favorite to be its twin: long body, flat face, shaggy gray fur that puffed out its tail to the width of my hand. “Liath,” I murmured, pulling a final stroke down her back, using the name of my maestro’s cat since I did not know her own.
***
Philip did not forget his demand that I provide clerical work during my stay. He sent word early the next morning that I was to attend him presently, and kept me all day and the next two as well, accompanying his steward through every room in the palace, taking stock of their foodstuffs, assessing the winter’s damage to the roof, determining which retainers needed new clothing.
Like the demand, the work was about putting me in my place, showing me how useless he considered my search. In his reckoning, counting bags of flour and missing slates were a better use of my time. My annoyance grew at finding the steward perfectly competent, neither desiring nor requiring my notations to remember what work was needed.
Philip joined us for the inspection of his weapons stores. He mused aloud about increasing his stockpile, unsubtly demonstrating how he thought the Saradenian threat should be handled. I silently noted all on the wax tablet, avoided looking at him, and pressed my teeth together until my jaws ached.
***
A week later the weather had not improved, but I had finished the travel narratives. I moved to the histories, regretting it immediately. The travel narratives had at least been interesting. The histories were longer, and they were dull, copious descriptions of Ragoni regional happenings. Liath returned as I finished the fourth manuscript, following the kitchen servant bringing supper. I scratched her ears as she kneaded my lap.
“You know how I know no one’s read these books for years?” I progressed to her chin. She licked a paw and cleaned her disordered ears. “If anyone had, they’d have scraped the parchment and reused it for something worthwhile.”
It wasn’t entirely true. Verbose and boring they were, but if someone wanted to write a history of Ragonne, these books would be a valuable source. I didn’t. I needed Saradena. But I doubted I’d find it among these books. So far the histories had scarcely mentioned any country outside Ragonne.
Liath sat with me as I worked late into the evening. When at last my head began to pitch forward, she found the movement unsettling and leapt down. Giving up for the night, I followed her out, scavenging whatever remained unspoiled from the supper basket on my way past
.
***
The next day’s second manuscript was mercifully interesting, particularly compared to the one I’d just finished, which should have been called An Interminable History of the City of Boltar. The new book covered the building of fortifications in Conlo. Conlo was the closest Ragoni city to Elbany and had regular contact with it.
Towards noon I heard the outer door open. Low voices told me Hal and Domon had arrived. I heard a chair creak as Domon settled into it, and was returning my attention to Conlo when Hal stepped through the doorway.
Conlo, Elbany—even Saradena—all fled.
A gash arced across his forehead, and bruises purpled the right side of his face. The cut, although long, was probably not serious. Blood had trickled down, matting his eyebrows, but the wound had already clotted. More worrisome, but less immediately noticeable, was the blood oozing between the fingers of his left hand, tightly clenched on his right arm just below the elbow.
I seized his shoulders and steered him to a chair. “What happened?”
“Domon, lady,” he grunted. “My lord Philip allows his brother a bottle of wine a day.”
I was surprised by Philip’s tangible, and expensive, generosity towards his brother. Or perhaps he thought Domon would be more manageable if he were tipsy most of the time. If that were his strategy, it seemed unsuccessful. “That doesn’t sound like a reason to attack you.”
“He finished today’s. Hours ago. He did not take well to me refusing to demand another from the steward.”
“Let me see.”
He shook his head. “No need. It’s deep. It’ll need to be stitched.”
I drew my hand back. “Don’t move. You’ll make the bleeding worse. I’m going for supplies.” Given how tightly his fingers pressed the wound, he clearly knew. “It’ll be a few moments. Will you be all right?”
“What’s Domon doing?”
I peeked through the doorway. “Eating.” I hadn’t heard the mid-day meal arrive.
“He should be busy for a while.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Domon scarcely glanced up as I ran past to my room. Like most people, men and women alike, I traveled with needle and thread. You never knew when you might have to sew up your clothing or other belongings. Or if you were unlucky, yourself. I started back to the library, then changed my mind and headed for the stairs.
Homegoing (The Tall Ships of Saradena Book 1) Page 7