A bolt of lightning arced down and literally exploded a tree just inside the fence of Companion’s Field, and the thunder that accompanied it deafened him for a moment. Then the sky opened up and rain pounded down on them. Not like “rain” at all, like standing under a waterfall.
Without even thinking about it, they grabbed for each others’ hands, and ran as best they could the remaining distance to their rooms. He got his hand on the door to the greenhouse by virtue of longer reach; he wrenched it open, and they both tumbled inside, panting, ending up sitting on the floor of the greenhouse, staring out at a downpour so heavy he couldn’t see more than an arm’s-length past the door. Anything further than that was just vague blurs.
They sat there, wordlessly, until Mags could finally hear again. He cleared his throat. “Got my ears back. You?”
She nodded. Slowly they both got to their feet and went inside, shivering, because the temperature had not just dropped, it had plummeted.
“I think I might have to build up the fire,” Amily said, and laughed. “And for the second night in a row, you’re a wet mess.”
“So are you,” he replied, with a slow smile. “Think we can save our boots this time?”
“Probably.” She shivered. “I want dry things. And as long as this is coming down, there’s going to be nothing moving outside.”
They got changed into their night-clothes, and rather than building up the fire, just got a blanket and bundled together in bed to watch the storm through the bedroom window. It showed no signs of tapering off any time soon. All the tension between them seemed to have evaporated with that lightning-strike. Mags wasn’t sure how long it was after it got dark that he found himself falling asleep, but after the last two days . . . I’ve earned it . . . And that was his last thought until morning.
• • •
The morning dawned bright and fresh and blessedly cool. Since for once they had gotten to sleep early, and since for once there had been no tearing emergencies to wake them in the middle of the night, they woke up naturally, about dawn. Mags lay quietly, listening to birds caroling, reveling in the fact that he wasn’t covered in sweat.
:Temper back under control?: Dallen asked.
:That why you didn’t nag at me last night, nag?: he replied, feeling much more like himself.
:You’d have needed stronger shields than you have to keep out all the garbage flying through the mental air last night,: Dallen replied. :You’re not an empath, but when rage and hate are that strong all around you, something’s going to get through. It was bad enough before the storm broke that the Healers and Heralds barricaded themselves together in their Collegia and put up group shields. There is a lot of ill-will up here right now, and all I can say is it’s a good thing it’s only affecting the Court. And mostly only affecting women. Women don’t generally duel each other.:
:Might be better if they did,: he replied. :Let out some of that crazy if they poked each other.:
“Talking to Dallen?” Amily asked. “Rolan and I have an idea.”
“And what idea’d that be?” he said, rolling over on his side to look into her face.
“We haven’t checked on the Sisters of Ardana since they got vandalized, and I want to see if they’ve had any more trouble down there. If we get breakfast in a hurry, we’ll be in time for their open services, and I’ve never been.” She wrinkled her nose as he made a face. “What? I feel like I need a nice big dose of virtue to wash out all the dreck from last night.”
“Then we’ll go,” he said, glad enough to give in to her whim to make up for all the nasty thoughts he’d had about her last night.
The ride down was . . . idyllic, was the only word that seemed to fit. The torrential rain had washed everything clean, the road was clear of even a hint of debris. There was that exploded tree in Companion’s Field, of course, and probably more downed trees and limbs, but out here there was no sign of last night’s destruction. Haven was awake, people eager to get out and do things while the air was cool after the heat and lethargy of the last sennight or more. They actually caught up with and overtook the cart carrying Ardana’s worshippers to the new venue; the driver recognized them as they passed and waved; they waved back.
The service was nothing like what Mags had expected. He had anticipated a lot of talking; prayers, homilies, at least one sermon and probably more, based on what he’d been enduring at the Temple of Sethor all this time. But once the little chapel filled—not just with the old devotees and the Sisters themselves, but with additions to the flock in the form of what must be their neighbors and some of the Sworn of Betane, Mags was treated to something that was incredibly peaceful.
There was a lot of music. Hymns, which seemed to take the place of prayers and which he much preferred, even if he and Amily were the only ones not singing. Interspersed with the hymns were musical interludes performed by two of the Sisters, one on a small organ, the other on an enormous harp, the biggest such instrument he had ever seen. Evidently they were all supposed to meditate on the lesson in the hymn they’d all just sung during these interludes. The music was simple, the words straightforward, and even though this was nothing like a Bardic performance, Mags found himself enjoying it a great deal more than he had thought possible.
After they had gone through this for about a candlemark, the Abbess mounted the pulpit and Mags braced himself, for this was the moment when the High Priest of Sethor would harangue his congregation for what always seemed like forever, and left him with a throbbing headache.
But instead of a harangue, the Abbess cleared her throat gently and began. “Perhaps it may seem odd that I, a member of a celibate and chaste Order, should speak on the subject of marriage and family. But we Sisters are as married to the Order as you good people are married to each other, and we consider ourselves a true family. And—” her eyes twinkled with amusement “—trust me, my dear friends, the road of our family can be, at times, as rocky as yours might be. So if you will forgive my boldness, let me talk about the marriage that is the true partnership of equals, and the family that gives each member that greatest of gifts, respect.”
The homily was all about husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, respecting each other and each doing the job he or she does best without getting into a competition over it—“Neither a competition in boasting nor one in complaining,” said the Abbess with another twinkle. “And always keeping in mind that as hard as your job is, your partner has one that matches it. Not at that instant, perhaps, but in another candlemark, or a day, or a sennight, your partner’s job will be harder than yours, while you appear to be at leisure.”
Her words painted a picture—perhaps a touch idyllic, but what was the matter with that?—of the sort of family Mags had seen in Lydia’s and Amily’s and that, until now, he had not realized he longed after. When the Abbess finished and stepped down from the pulpit, he found himself with a strange ache in his throat, and the feeling that he had seen something he wanted with all his heart that just . . . might . . . be within his grasp.
Then there was more music, and the ceremony came to an end. No wonder them folks was willin’ to come all the way down here for this, he thought to himself, as Amily got up to intercept the Abbess before she retreated back into the main building. An’ no wonder these local folks have been comin’. And for a moment he wondered if he had arranged to send Katlie to the wrong people—
:No, you didn’t,: Dallen replied firmly. :The Sisters are excellent women, but they would only succeed in comforting, not strengthening. They don’t understand how someone can have the kind of low opinion of herself that Katlie does. Sister Thistle would . . . well she is absolutely the wrong person to deal with someone like that girl. We made the right choice.:
Mags saw that Amily had succeeded in intercepting the Abbess and Sister Thistle; Mags headed in their direction, but found himself being accosted by an old couple who looked absolutely determ
ined to speak with him.
Well, Amily don’t need my help . . . With a smile he turned to the old man and nodded. Taking that as encouragement, the old gentleman tucked his wife’s hand in the crook of his arm and smiled back. “We’re told, Meya and me, that you’re responsible for our cart, Herald,” the old fellow said. “And if that’s so, then we’d like to thank you ourselves, and if it’s not, we’d like you to carry our thanks to the Herald that is.”
“That would be me, Amily, an’ the Prince,” Mags said truthfully. “We had the ideer, the Prince made it happen.”
The man and his wife beamed. “We went to one service at the old place, where they have that Sethoras or whatever his name is,” said the old man. “Or, I did. Meya was made not welcome, but told me to go anyway and see what’s what, and a nastier, more hateful lot of so-called holy men, I never saw.” He looked as if he would have liked to spit, but was too polite. “It was all women must submit and women are not fit, more trash like that. Ugh. We were ever so glad to come up here to our dear Sisters again, thanks to the Prince, you, and Herald Amily.”
Mags was properly modest, and thanked them; they thanked him and the Prince and Amily a few more times, then realized that the wagon was probably waiting for them and hurried off. Mags waited politely for Amily to disengage herself from the Abbess before joining her.
“You look like you got some good news,” he said. “Which I’d like to hear, good news bein’ in short supply lately.”
“Come on then, we should be getting back up the Hill,” she replied. “The guards that the Prioress sent here are certainly keeping things quiet. Having them here makes the Sisters feel secure, and the Abbess tells me they are back to their old selves. Not only are all the old adherents coming down, but as you saw the neighbors have decided to join, too. And there are three new Novices, the first in ages. Sister Thistle tells me that they are slowly replacing the manuscript copies that were destroyed, but work is going faster than it did back at the old Abbey because it’s so much more comfortable here.”
They had reached the Companions by that point, and Mags raised an eyebrow. “Really? They ain’t bakin’ in the heat?”
Amily shrugged. “Maybe not. I know that great stone building stays cool, but cold fingers have trouble drawing.”
They mounted up, and the Companions ambled out onto the road again. Mags told her what the old couple had said to him.
“The Prince will be pleased,” she observed. “But . . . ugh. That matches with everything you’ve seen there. I wish they would fail miserably, and I would love to discover one of them is our Poison Pen.”
Mags sighed. He couldn’t blame her. But he had been haunting the place for sennights now, and so far . . . while there might be—probably was—a link to the vandalized shops, not by any stretch of the imagination could he come up with one to the Poison Pen. “Those toughs down in Haven I told you about were saying the same things before the High Priest opened up the Temple. And we’re still lookin’ at the same problem we had afore; with everyone we got watchin’ now, an’ the Guards on alert, how could someone from down in Haven be getting up the Hill to wreak havoc?”
“Isn’t that just the question.” She bit her lip. “It would actually be easier for someone on the Hill to have vandalized the Abbey and the Priory than someone from Haven to have gotten on the Hill. I think I dislike logic and facts. A lot.”
At the moment, Mags was inclined to agree with her.
The gazebo was now the place of choice for Mags, Amily, Jorthun, Nikolas, and sometimes Dia to meet. It would be impossible for an outsider to overhear them talking. Even if Mags and Amily were followed, there was no way anyone could get near the thing. Jorthun had never brought an outsider up here, so even if the Poison Pen was a Farseer . . . he’d never be able to Farsee inside the gazebo.
And that was the current topic of interest. “He or she has to be a Farseer,” said Mags. “There ain’t no other explanation ’bout how that Poison Pen bastard knowd how what was diggin’ under Katlie’s skin and concentrated on it.” He scratched his head. “I’d give a lot t’know how whoever it was aimed in on Katlie, though.”
There was no need for a servant to wet down the reed screens that had been let down around all four walls of the gazebo today. It was hot, yes, but not the punishing heat that had clamped down over all of Haven before the great thunderstorm. The breeze that filtered through the walls of the gazebo was adequate to keep them all comfortable. And not for the first time, Mags admired the sheer efficiency of Lord Jorthun’s household. For this delicate structure to survive the storm, someone must have come up here before it broke, disassembled it and stored it somewhere safe, then put it all back up again the next morning.
Lord Jorthun looked at him from across the gazebo. “Oh,” he said, calmly. “It’s a he. I’ll stake my reputation on it.”
Nikolas raised an eyebrow. “I’ve seldom known you to be mistaken, but how can you be so sure the Poison Pen is a man? Aren’t women usually the ones—” He caught sight of his daughter glaring at him, coughed, and didn’t finish the sentence.
“It didn’t take long to deduce,” Lord Jorthun said smoothly. “If the Poison Pen was a woman, why attack the Sisters of Ardana? They are a chaste and celibate order and after no one’s man. They are taking no man’s job, or at least, they are taking no job that a woman with conventional ideas of men’s and women’s roles would consider to be a ‘job.’”
Amily’s brow wrinkled. “I’m not following.”
“It is exceptionally clear that the Poison Pen has rigid notions of what the roles of men and women should be. Fiddling about making pretty drawings is not the sort of thing a manly man does, not in the eyes of a woman.” Jorthun massaged his right temple a little. “And that was the key, right there. There was absolutely no reason to attack the Sisters of Ardana on either the grounds of being man-stealing hussies, or stealing men’s jobs.”
“So?” Amily asked. Mags was pretty sure Amily’s eyes were lighting up, but she was trying to hide her enthusiasm. He knew why. She hated the idea that the Poison Pen could be a woman. And it irked her that he refused to leave the idea that it could be a woman out of his calculations. Such as they were. So far . . . he was coming up blank, except that he was fairly sure that someone who was a Sethorite was behind the shop vandalizing.
“Only a man with a vendetta against women who step out of their destined places as wives and mothers would see the Sisters of Ardana as a worthy target. The Sisters of Betane of the Axe, yes, a woman would view them as being utterly unwomanly, but the Sisters of Ardana? Never.” Jorthun nodded decisively. “There they were, doing what old women should do; get out of the way, tend bees, and paint pretty pictures.”
“Wouldn’t a woman be just as inclined to see them as being unwomanly because they do all that studying? Competing with men intellectually?” Nikolas asked skeptically.
“In my experience, no, a woman would not consider that competition, and as for the studying in and of itself? In that sort of woman’s mind, as long as the Sisters weren’t trying to corrupt younger women into their intellectual lifestyle—and remember, at that point they had no new younger Novices—what they did with their time until they died would be of no consequence.” Mags was a little startled. He’d rarely heard Jorthun wax so eloquent on anything. “But to a man with rigid ideas about the proper place of women? To a man like that, no matter her age, any woman who steps out of the proper sphere must be beaten back into her place. And no woman should presume to display her intellect, for the sphere of intellect is the domain of men, only.”
“But . . . what about the shops?” Mags ventured.
“At the moment, I am sure that the one vandalizing the shops in Haven is entirely separate from both the Poison Pen and the vandalizing of the Sisters of Ardana and the Temple of Betane.” Jorthun paused to collect his thoughts. “The incidents may be—I will go so far as to
say are probably—connected, but it is two different individuals or even groups. Had it been the same, the Poison Pen could not have resisted leaving written messages, but all he has left is wreckage.”
Mags let out his breath at that. “I couldn’t see a connection,” he confessed.
“Oh I am sure there is a connection, and I am exceedingly suspicious that the connection is the Sethorites, but the where and how of putting it all together.” Jorthun’s brow furrowed. “However . . . you mentioned a Farseer and I am totally in agreement with you. It would explain how someone in Haven—in the Sethorites, even—could know what to put in those letters, who to send them to, and when to send them.”
“Katlie—” Mags ventured.
“Nothing we need to concern ourselves with now. She’s protected from the Poison Pen by the best people possible. There will be time enough for discovering how he managed to find Katlie to target her after we’ve caught him.” Jorthun’s mouth thinned into a hard line. “It’s tempting to concentrate on her, but at this point, she’s inconsequential to catching him, because I will not use her as bait. She’s too fragile.”
Mags heard that with relief, although Nikolas frowned a little. Then again, Nikolas hadn’t seen the poor girl when he’d pulled her out of the water and handed her over to the Healers. And he hadn’t talked to her, or seen her when Amily was trying to talk to her.
He knew exactly why Nikolas wanted to do that. And he honestly didn’t blame his mentor a bit for considering the idea. He also knew if Nikolas saw Katlie, he’d put the notion right out of his mind. It’s a lot easier to think of using someone when you haven’t looked into their eyes.
“But that brings me to what I was thinking, when Mags insisted the Poison Pen must be a Farseer,” Lord Jorthun continued. “Is there any way a Farseer can be kept from seeing what is transpiring up here on the Hill? Or at least prevented from seeing inside the walls around the Palace grounds?”
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