Closer to the Chest

by Mercedes Lackey

  “That’s not necessary—” Mags protested.

  “Oh I assure you, it is,” the priest said, and would not hear otherwise. So Mags found himself escorted past all the acolytes and servants and other underlings he would very much have liked to speak to, and straight into the capacious office of the High Priest.

  “Capacious” was indeed the right word for it. The office was the size of the Lesser Audience Chamber at the Palace, but sparsely furnished. The walls were the same plain, white stone as the antechamber, the Sanctuary, and the exterior. There was a single strip of blue carpet leading from the door to a desk at the back of the room, and two chairs, one behind the desk, and one in front of it. If the High Priest wanted the place to look austere, he was succeeding.

  Nice an’ cool in here, though. Damn comfortable in all this heat. Truth to tell at the moment he envied them this stone pile.

  “Ah, good afternoon, Herald!” The High Priest was already standing when Mags entered, and Mags’ immediate impression was of a hard, cold man, very erect in his blue robes. Deceptively simple, those robes were, but Mags, who was good friends with the now-Princess Lydia, had learned all about fabrics from her. And he could recognize, by the drape and the suppleness of those “simple” robes, that they probably cost more than double what the more elaborately embroidered vestments of some other clerics he knew cost.

  As for the heavy gold chain and medallion around the High Priest’s neck . . . it probably represented the combined wealth of a small town.

  “I am Theodor Kresh, High Priest of Lord Sethor the Patriarch. And you are—?”

  “Herald Pippin,” Mags lied, knowing Pip would cover for him. He took extra pains with his pronunciation and accent. “I was just passing through this neighborhood and I thought I would pay my respects.”

  But the High Priest smiled thinly. “Oh, come now, Herald. We both know that Heralds are far too busy merely to drop in and pay respects. Let’s not insult each other’s intelligence, Herald Pippin. What brings you here?”

  The High Priest gestured to the chair; it was a hard, unyielding, straight-backed thing. Mags took it. All right, the first bout had gone to Theodor Kresh. He would have to make sure he won all the rest.

  “The local Watch consulted with me on a string of crimes in this neighborhood,” he replied, with the strict truth. “I was hoping perhaps one of your underlings might have noticed something, since you men of the cloth are apt to be awake at all hours of the night, and certainly get to hear many things from your worshippers.”

  Kresh took his own chair, and steepled his fingers in front of his face, not quite hiding a faint smile. “Ah, I believe you are referring to those shops that were so peculiarly vandalized?”

  Mags merely nodded.

  “It is my personal belief that the women did it themselves,” Kresh continued. “After all, if one is failing at running a business, and doesn’t want anyone to know this, how better to get out from under the burden of the business and garner sympathy at the same time, than to destroy all one’s stock and pin the blame on mysterious vandals?”

  Mags was glad he had his best gambling-face on, since otherwise he might have tipped his hand with his reaction to such an outrageous statement.

  “That’s a theory I had not considered,” he replied, again truthfully. “Do you really think it’s possible? I am given to understand these depredations amounted to a considerable financial loss to these women.”

  “Which, thanks to all the well-meaning sympathy of their neighbors and the generosity of those around them, they have no doubt recouped,” Kresh retorted, waving his hand as if it were a foregone conclusion. “As it should be. No woman should attempt to run a business. A woman’s place is as the helpmeet and support of her husband or father. The God Sethor created them to serve, not push themselves forward. Now they can resume a woman’s proper place, a little the poorer in worldly goods for it, but so much richer in spirit. They will be happier when they are in the position that God designed them for. Don’t you agree?”

  “Of course,” Mags said, vaguely. “Nevertheless, this vandalism is a crime against property, and it has caused no end of inconvenience to the gentlemen who were expecting to be able to supply their needs from those shops. As such, we really should take them seriously and give it a thorough investigation. And if said investigation turns up the fact that your allegations are true, would that not be so much the better?”

  The High Priest snorted a little, but admitted that might be the case. “Still, don’t you think it is better for them to have their misplaced ambitions quashed all at once, rather than watching their business and the health of their souls perish little by little over the course of a year or more? This is kinder, not unlike the removal of a rotten tooth. Get it over with at once; one sharp pain, then all will be well.”

  “Still,” Mags insisted. “These are crimes. We simply cannot allow them to go on, nor can we allow the perpetrators to go unpunished. The next things to be vandalized might belong to men—or religious orders.”

  “Well, of course you can’t, Herald Pippin.” Theodor Kresh responded immediately. “I never implied that you should. I am merely trying to point out that for every evil that befalls, some good can come out of it, and if that good in this case is that these women come to understand their proper place in the world, and that God has given them a very gentle chastisement at the hands of a criminal, then that is the best possible outcome.” He huffed a little. “Of course you must pursue every possible path of investigation, and of course if we of Sethor hear of anything to assist you, we will inform you immediately.”

  It was a very uncomfortable interview, which in the end yielded no information whatsoever. Mags left the Temple feeling faintly dirty, and very much as if he had been jousting with an eel.

  Nevertheless. . . .

  :I think I need to join that Temple,: he told Dallen.

  :Hmm. I did notice that there seem to be an unusual number of street toughs among the devotees of this “Sethor,”: Dallen replied, craning his head around to look at Mags with one blue eye.

  :All the more reason. But not as Harkon. I guess I am going to have to go invent someone else.:

  • • •

  This was going to be a very hot summer, and the heat was not improving tempers up on the Hill. People were trying all manner of things to deal with the heat, and the most popular was the most dangerous.

  The Terilee River that cut through the Palace grounds and ran down the Hill into Haven was much too fast to swim in safely until it widened and slowed outside the city boundary. Even the best swimmers could be caught unaware by the fast current, and it was a fight to get back to the bank. But the water was fresh, clean enough to drink, and cold—there were laws, strictly enforced, about running sewage pipes into it—and oh, so very tempting when the sun blazed down overhead.

  Boats were fine for sculling about on the river, and there were plenty of them to be had, but evidently it was not enough for some people to row or sail, or sit on the riverbank and trail arms and legs in the current. Down below Haven, where the current slowed and the river widened, it was perfectly safe to swim, and people just couldn’t understand (or pretended not to) why swimming was allowed there and not here. After far too many instances of chasing half-naked people out of the water, Prince Sedric threw up his hands and demanded that someone come up with a solution. “Something other than lining the bank with Guards,” he said, crossly.

  As Lirelle and Loren, Lord Semel’s younger children had discovered, there was a subset of people at the Collegium (informally called the “Blues,” since they were encouraged to wear a blue variation on the Trainee uniforms when attending classes), allowed to take whatever classes interested them. While most were the children of the courtiers, there were some from middling or outright impoverished backgrounds that had won a place here by virtue of their intelligence and talents. So while othe
rs, supposedly older and wiser, were debating things like fences and punishments for being rescued, they were working on the assumption that people were going to go right on trying to river-bathe, and probably do it at riskier times or places, so it would be better to just find a way to make river-bathing safer.

  When one of their artificer instructors found out what they were up to, he set it to them as a class project, and presented the result to Sedric. Sedric was delighted, and ordered their clever plan constructed at once.

  So now, on either side of the bridge crossing the river for several lengths, heavy, well-anchored ropes crossed the span, with floats at equal intervals. Hanging from these ropes down into the depths of the water were heavily weighted, coarse nets, with holes large enough for fish to fit through, but not people. There were half a dozen of these nets on either side of the bridge. At the banks between the nets were rafts or floating docks, providing safe exits and entrances to the water.

  By common consent, ladies took the upstream side of the bridge, and men the downstream. Most of the female Trainees just went in wearing lightweight breeches cut off at the knee and shirts with the sleeves cut off, all out of the rag-bags, but ladies of the Court tended to concoct loose dresses that were more modest in theory, and absurd in practice. And most of these ladies didn’t know how to swim, so the Trainees had to put up with helping them into the river, then haul them and all their dripping yards of fabric out onto the docks, and watch them clinging to the nets and shrieking nervously.

  But at least it gave them something to do besides sit in the shade and fan themselves in a vain attempt to escape the heat, stew about the vicious letters they’d been sent, and engage in whispered gossip about who the sender probably was.

  And after a few days, some of them had begun begging the Trainees to teach them to swim, which gave everyone something constructive instead of destructive to concentrate on.

  Amily had escaped from the oppressive closeness of the Council Chamber and opted for a chance to cool off, instead of pick at a luncheon she was too hot to eat. Like the Trainees, she cut the arms and legs off some maltreated Whites, and joined them at the river. She found herself in the middle of an energetic pod of mixed Trainees, who had just helped the last of their swimming students out of the water. The ladies looked exhausted—which pleased Amily no end. That meant they’d probably find a cool spot and sleep the afternoon away. And that meant they wouldn’t be brooding over imagined wrongs, or picking quarrels with people.

  The current really was strong here; it was work to stay in between the ropes and their nets. She and the others splashed their way across and back about half a dozen times, then lined up like birds on a branch, arms draped over the downstream rope with their backs to it and letting the water push them into the net.

  “Well,” she said to the nearest. “You lot haven’t brought me any reports, so I am assuming there is nothing to report. Am I right?”

  The Trainee nearest her was wearing an excuse for a shirt in faded pink, so she assumed it was a Bardic Trainee. “Nothing to speak of,” the girl said, as the one in faded gray on Amily’s other side nodded. “A very few letters coming up from Haven in the regular mail, in proper envelopes sealed with a proper wafer, so there’s nothing to pick them out from ordinary mail. He’s learned, whoever he is.”

  “The letters are the same, except he seems to have figured out who’s about to go into Whites or Scarlets,” said the Heraldic Trainee. “Though maybe it’s just that he’s good at guessing ages and assumes the older you are the closer you are to getting promoted. Most of the letters, ours at least, are general pronouncements that we’re going straight to some form of hell for daring to act like men, and a wish for us to fail and get sent away in disgrace.”

  The Bardic Trainee craned her neck to look around Amily at the Heraldic Trainee, her expression one of utter disbelief. “He actually said that to your lot?”

  The Heraldic Trainee laughed. “I know, stupid, isn’t it? He clearly has no idea how things work. I wonder if he just thinks Companions are fancy horses?”

  “If he’s that stupid, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.” She smiled. “I’ll have to pass that on. It might make things a little better. Even if they aren’t true, those letters still sting.”

  “Has anyone caught anyone lurking about?” Amily asked—without much hope.

  “No, worse luck, which kind of speaks to the notion that he’s living up here, doesn’t it?” the Heraldic Trainee—Sara, that was her name, Amily remembered at last—said. “Which is not at all comforting.”

  “No, it’s not,” Amily agreed. And they don’t know the half of it. All the Trainees knew was that there was a Poison Pen sending nasty letters about. They didn’t know about the burning effigy. They didn’t know about the outrages committed against the two Orders down in Haven. Or these new things that Mags was investigating, the vandalism of shops owned by women. One bad actor? Two? More? It hardly seemed possible that it could be a single person. It hardly seemed possible that it could be more than one. The messages were all so similar . . .

  But there were no messages at all in the vandalized shops, she reminded herself. So what does that mean?

  At least it was easier to think, here with the cool water holding her against the support of the net.

  Sara began giggling. Amily looked over at her. “What?” she asked.

  “Well, if he is up here, he won’t be able to avoid seeing us all frolicking about in semi-undress in the water, showing all our curves for anyone to see,” Sara replied, face full of amusement. “And if that doesn’t send him off on a tirade, I don’t know what will! We might start getting letters by the wheelbarrow full!”

  “Which will give us a much better chance of catching him,” agreed the Bardic Trainee with renewed enthusiasm. “Glory! When you think how nasty-minded he is, all of us flouncing around like watery floozies is going to make him pitch the most enormous fit!”

  The Trainees nearest the three of them had been listening with interest, and seemed to think this would be a wonderful thing.

  But Amily found herself suppressing alarm. Because she remembered what Jorthun had said about people of this sort always escalating, rather than backing down.

  And she dreaded to think what form that escalation might take—given all this provocation. . . .

  • • •

  “Fire! Fire!”

  Once again, Amily and Mags were awakened by frantic alarms—but this time, it wasn’t just one voice, it was several, and there was real fear in the words.

  Mags had taken to sleeping in something he could at least run out wearing, and with his soft half-boots right at the side of the bed. He was shod and out the door in a flash, and it was clear that this blaze was not a mere effigy. It was the size of a good-sized bonfire, and clearly intended to attract attention. Once again, it was in the middle of the gardens—but this time people were boiling out of all three Collegia and even the Palace to come and gape at it while the servants struggled to put it out.

  That was when he got a flash of foreboding, and ran for Herald’s Collegium.

  Tried rather. By the time he fought his way through the mob and into the corridor of the classrooms, the damage had been done.

  Someone had come through like a rampaging bull. The corridor was full of books, papers, even a couple of chairs—

  Mags took it all in at a glance, and in that glance knew that this vandalism was fundamentally identical to what had happened down in Haven, in those shops.

  And even as he thought that, he was running again, this time heading for Bardic; but some of the Heraldic Trainees had just discovered the mess in their Collegium, and now he had to fight to get through, as panicked Trainees struggled to get to their rooms, thinking that the demon of destruction had surely been there as well.

  The scene was the same at Bardic, and the people who had seen him fighting hi
s way through the crowds, and had either assumed he was the troublemaker, or was chasing the miscreant, stumbled into the corridor next to him and started clamoring about the damage there—

  He abandoned them and sprinted for Healer’s. But there, at last, he found that people with a level head had anticipated trouble at the first cry of Fire. He found adult Healers with staves and grim looks on their faces posted at every entrance, including the entrance into the greenhouse. No one had seen anything, but then, it would not have been at all difficult for the vandal to spot people standing in the doorways, guarding them. It seemed the hunt was over, and the fox had escaped again.

  • • •

  “It looks like a pile of rags,” Mags said dubiously, as he poked at the pile of burned fabric with a stick. The reason it had been so difficult to put out was because every stitch of the clothing in that pile had been soaked in oil.

  “It does,” Amily agreed. Primed, perhaps, by the conversation in the river this afternoon, she had recognized immediately what had been burned. “I would bet any amount of money, though, that what was in that pile were the river-bathing outfits people have rescued out of the rag-bag.”

  He looked mystified, but of course he would; he hadn’t been up on the Hill of late until after sunset, and left right after breakfast. He knew nothing about the new sport of river-swimming. She explained it all to him as he listened, brows creased. She saw understanding light up his eyes as she described the abbreviated costumes the Trainees were wearing to swim.

  “Don’t tell me—when people are done they go hang them out on a line in the laundry-garden, and fetch them in the morning?” he guessed.

  She nodded. “It would be child’s play to gather up as many as the vandal wanted, dump oil on them, and set them on fire.”

  He cursed. “The bastard foxed us again. An’ nobody but the Healers have got alibis. Most of the Hill was runnin’ around like chickens last night.”