To draw steel. The words were on her lips. If she uttered them, she had no doubt Isaic would die.
She hated what the boy was becoming, but she still cared for him. If there was another way, she wanted to find it.
"—to belay my orders."
Finally Shephatiah's face betrayed a hint of alarm. "And? Did they obey him?"
"Melakai Thorn drew steel, as did another. The third hesitated, but if it had come to violence, there's no telling." Most likely Simon would've killed all three of them.
"Steel. Mercy take us." Shephatiah resettled himself in his groaning chair. "Well, I can't say I'm surprised. The boy's always been rebellious, egged on by his mother, I imagine, and you never did anything to dissuade him."
Angelica kept her tongue. She refused to rise to such easy bait. Besides, she had braced for far worse.
"This is just the latest, of course," the Keeper continued. "You shouldn't have allowed him to hold these audiences in the first place. You know full well the Order of Judgment reserves complete jurisdiction in Keswick. Yet somehow you managed to not only allow them, but to remain completely ignorant of them for weeks. And this is on top of that travesty with the redwarts. Have you demanded payment yet for the Church's efforts this winter?"
"I have. It's forthcoming."
Shephatiah cackled. "No, it's not! You think I'm a fool? The only fool in this room is you! You're too attached to the boy—you've gone soft."
That's an ironic accusation, coming from you. But the Keeper wasn't finished.
"You should've been removed from that post long ago. Deorr should have done it years ago. I told him. I saw it coming. I knew you were weak—but he was Keeper then, and you still had enough of your beauty left to charm him."
Shame burned in her cheeks—shame at his words, shame at feeling shame. Sixty-three summers I have, and still I let him treat me like this. She was twenty years his senior, old enough to be his mother, but that had never afforded her any advantage; if anything, it had made all his years of abuse even worse. He'd used her age as a shackle to keep her silent. No one will believe you, he'd said. A woman of your age? You should be pleased with the attention.
How long? she wondered. How long will I put up with this? Will I die without so much as an argument? She had come to Keswick as a deacon of twenty-five summers, glowing with renewed faith and purpose, hopeful that the horrors of her childhood were finally behind her. That glow had faded over the decades as she worked herself raw to gain the rank of abbot, doing two and three times the work of the men, but it had never truly vanished—until she had dared to believe that one day she could be Keeper of Majesta.
Shephatiah had been a fiery upstart when he arrived, young and inexperienced. He had started raping her within the week. All her old horrors had come with him, eclipsing her ambition and snuffing out the last of her hopes. Deorr, the former Keeper, had never seriously considered her again after that. Her eventual promotion to bishop had been a perversion of everything she'd wanted—gained as a bribe for her silence and her "service." Far from granting her the respect she'd once longed for, the promotion had shunted her into the role of royal nanny for the King's sons—out of Majesta and out of Shef's sight. It had killed her career and her dreams with the stroke of a pen, and she'd had no way to fight it. A woman, promoted to bishop, who then complained?
It should have been a small comfort to see what had become of him: this corpulent monster that could barely heave its weight from its chair. But it wasn't. Instead, she could only think: That is what bested me. That . . . thing. That's what I fell prey to.
And suddenly, she realized she no longer cared about her rank or reputation. Both had been twisted beyond recognition already; both were the irons on her ankles, not the wings at her back. The only thing she wanted now was to stand up, for once, on her own two feet—to stand up to him.
"Yes," she said. "Fine. My mistakes, my sins, they're all mine. But you're Keeper, Shef." She used the nickname he hated, just to claw back a scrap of dignity. "With Bishop Caleb in Borkalis with the King, you're the senior cleric in Keswick. It falls to you―"
"—to clean up your mess." He looked like an overgrown child when he frowned.
"—to appoint a judge to the case, to represent the Church."
He boggled. "You expect me to go along with this farce?"
"What's the alternative? You think you can convince him where I couldn't? I was his nana, Shef, for twenty years."
His face soured. "I don't like your tone. You forget yourself."
"I'm sorry, Father. Please forgive me." Her sarcastic contrition mollified him—he was too stupid to recognize it—so she switched it back off. "But you still can't change his mind. You . . . he ran to my room when he had nightmares. I would hold him until dawn! If he won't listen to the woman who taught him to read and tucked him in every night, he's not going to listen to some slob who can barely stand up."
Shef's jaw nearly hit his desk, quivering like congealed grease. He shot to his feet in a burst of sudden vigor. "You forget your place, Sister!"
"No," she returned levelly, "you forget yours. You wanted this. All of this. Well, it's yours. You're Keeper. You. When the archbishop returns to find Isaic has sehked all over the throne, you think he'll care about your whining complaints that it's my fault? 'Oh, the woman did it!' 'Oh, how could I have known?' You sehking pile of fat. I'll tell him I came to you with it and you cocked it up. I'm just a woman, after all." She could scarcely believe the words coming out of her mouth. She hadn't planned this, but . . . Akir, it felt good. If it costs me everything, it will be worth it.
He choked on his own words, quaking with rage, fingers splayed on the desk like sausages.
"Isaic demanded the Church submit a representative," she continued, conversationally, as if she'd never behaved otherwise, "and you can't talk him out of it. You can't strongarm him out of it, either. The Crownwardens are loyal to him, and the peasants love him since he started these trials. Nearly all the Church's guard has gone to Tal'aden for the Dedication anyway, and even if you did threaten force, what would you do if he pushed back? If Caleb returns to blood in the streets, you'll be lucky if he settles for taking your star—he may very well prefer your head."
"Hardly," Shef fumed. "Bishop Caleb understands the occasional need for blood in the streets. Akir's subjects grow unruly without a reminder now and again." He scoffed. "In Red Quarter―"
"Red Quarter's cleansings are planned. They don't happen on accident because an incompetent Keeper can't understand when a situation requires a touch of diplomacy."
Shephatiah growled. "I have had about enough of your insults."
Angelica threw her words like darts: "Appoint. A. Judge."
"Fine." He eased his bulk back into the chair. "You. This is your mess, you resolve it."
It was Angelica's turn to scoff. "I'm an apostle, not a judge. By God, Father, you do understand the difference, don't you?"
"There's precedent. Apostles can serve as judges when needed."
"But there's no need!"
"You said it yourself—most of the Keswick clergy is gone to Tal'aden. I'm the senior cleric. I've made the decision."
"But I know next to nothing about this case! I only happened to hear about it because it―"
"Then you will lose!" Shef snapped. "And I'll be forced to tell Bishop Caleb that despite your long years of maternal bond with the Prince Regent, you couldn't persuade him of God's own, inherent right to the land He created." The triumphant glimmer in his eyes told her everything.
He had won, and he knew it.
iii. Melakai
Cort huddled in over the table, scandal dancing in his eyes. "Did you hear what happened to Tim?"
"Keep your voice down," Melakai grunted. The Devil's Respite wasn't a quiet tavern on its deadest night, and tonight was a far cry from that—but he had no interest in having this conversation with some eavesdropping drunkard. Or worse, a priest with good ears. "'Course I heard what happene
d to Tim. Whole damn city's heard what happened to Tim." He downed an ale—his second of the night, with many more to come—and wiped the foam from his long moustaches. This was usually the part where Cort teased him, calling him "Old Droopface" and generally acting like a clean-shaven pup because Kai was still wearing a style that went out twenty years ago, but tonight he wasn't saying sehk. "And if you hadn't finally gotten your fool sword out when you did, you'd be joining him."
Cort threw up his hands. "I was just following your lead. I had no idea what to do. I've never seen anything like that."
"Me neither."
"Like what?" Demetrius Cariott, captain of the city guard, pulled up a chair. "Heard about Shepherd's Hill, did you?"
"Shepherd's Hill?" Cort glanced at Kai. "Never heard of it."
"Trius," Kai said with a nod, acknowledging his old friend. "Little farming town way out east," he went on, and waved down the serving girl for a refill. "By the Tears. Why, what happened?"
"Stormsign," Trius pronounced. "Whole place burned."
Kai scoffed. "Places burn. That doesn't always mean it's Stormsign."
"This was," the other man insisted. "No travelers for days, right, and that's a warning right there. Someone's always coming up that way. It's the main trade route into the valley. And the pilgrims―"
"For the Dedication in Tal'aden," Kai put in, seeing Cort's confusion.
"—the ones heading that way, no one sees 'em come out on the other side. It's a week or two of this, and then they see the smoke all the way over in Syper—tons of it. Search party heads over, finds the whole place burned to the ground. No survivors, no one to explain."
"So they had a loose brushfire," Cort said. For better or worse, the kid was good at taking Kai's lead. Saved him in that throne room today, Kai mused.
"No. The bodies—they were torn up. Some of 'em ripped in half. Something came through there. I'm telling you, they had horses with their heads ripped off at the neck."
Cort paled, so Kai jumped in. "You're telling us?" Another sip of ale. "I suppose you were there."
Trius glowered. "'Course I wasn't there. But they sent birds—bunch of people know."
Cort looked at Kai, clearly expecting another rebuttal. When it wasn't forthcoming, he looked back to Trius. "That's it, then? What was it?"
Now it was the guard captain's turn to take a dramatic sip of ale. "No one knows. Some are saying devils, some are even saying dragons―"
"Oh, dog's balls." Melakai shook his head. "This is exactly my problem with this kind of sehk. People are just jumping at the chance to be scared out of their wits."
"It's the last days, Kai," Trius said. "That second Rending proved it."
Kai laughed. "All it proved was how gullible some folks are."
"Keep your head in the sand if you want. When they speak on Dawnday, some of us listen."
"And some of us sleep in." Melakai belched. "We playing cards tonight or what?"
Cort slapped a deck on the table, ready to move on. "Clerics over crowns, merchants are wild, play to five?"
"Let's run it crowns over clerics tonight," Melakai said, "in keeping with the events of the day."
Cort grinned. "Sounds good to me. Crowns over clerics. Place your bids, gentlemen."
Melakai cracked open his coin purse and caught himself surprised, yet again, by the glimmer of gold inside. On a wild impulse, he grabbed a silver shell and set it on the table.
"Elderman lays a shell!" Cort exclaimed.
"I thought this was a friendly round," Trius said.
"Indulge me," Kai said; then, to Cort, "Call me 'elderman' again and I'll take you for everything."
"Yes, sir."
"You have a rich uncle die or something, Kai?" Trius asked.
Melakai snorted. "All my uncles been dead for years. Pony up." He didn't explain where the money came from, and Trius didn't chase the question.
That was good. Kai didn't want to share.
Earlier that night he'd set up Benjamin Ashandiel in the Gilded Rose, a fine establishment suitable for visiting nobility, just down the way from the royal palace. Babysitting old men wasn't a usual job for him, but given the circumstances, he'd done as his prince had asked. He paid for the room himself and even pulled a couple of Trius's Blackboots from a local patrol, leaving them stationed just outside his room. He went light on the details of their assignment, saying only that the Prince Regent had ordered the protection and that they'd be paid for their services. He knew damned well that the first Preserver or Justicar to approach would send them running for the hills, but it was the best he could do on short notice.
Tim had just been leaving when Kai had returned to the palace. The man had been white as a sheet as he hurried past, and Kai had guessed at what happened. He began to realize, then, exactly how much import the day's events had had. He'd been chewing on it when a messenger found him, directing him to the Prince Regent's study.
When he arrived, Isaic asked without preamble, "What keeps you loyal?"
"Come again?" He normally didn't speak so candidly to the Prince, but the question had taken him by surprise, and it had been a taxing day. Isaic was young—twenty-two summers, of an age with Cort—and sometimes, if he wasn't careful, Melakai was tempted to treat him that way. He managed a belated, "Your Highness?"
"What keeps you loyal, Kai? You've been here since before I was born. You started service under my father's father, and you're still here."
This is about what happened in the throne room, he thought. "You gave an order, Your Highness, and I followed it."
"Yes, and you were the only one. Why?" The Prince Regent was a striking young man, with the good grooming and healthy skin of someone of privilege—someone who never wanted for the Church's miracles should he need them. He could've easily turned out like his brother, a pompous sap obsessed with court gossip whose gravest concern at any time was how many women he would bed that week, and for a time as he was growing up, Melakai had been afraid of just that.
But something had changed in the young man after his mother died. The fog of naïveté had lifted from his eyes, exposing a keen-minded young noble intent on making up for lost time, and Melakai had been glad to see him. That look was in his eyes now, and while Kai would've hedged with anyone else—especially the King—his instincts told him to do otherwise here.
"Well, I suppose there are a lot of reasons, Your Highness, but my gut tells me you didn't bring me up here to spin some drivel about oaths and honor."
"No. I'd like you to be candid. I need you to be candid."
"M'sai." Melakai braced himself. "I don't know what Angelica taught you, but men are loyal to coin. Love for the throne is a nice ideal, but ideals don't fill your cup or put a roof over your head."
"No," Isaic said. "Not 'men.' You. Is your pay what keeps you loyal?"
"A man's gotta eat, he needs that roof, and the crowns I live on come from the throne." It felt like a safe answer. Honest.
But not the whole truth.
He sighed. "Honor-drivel aside, Your Highness, I do care about the Gregors. I've been a Crownwarden most of my life. I've watched you grow up with a lot of pride, and when the day comes, I'll be proud to call you King."
"Why?"
Kai could scarcely believe the question. Only decades of experience kept the surprise from his face. Most nobility—including Isaic's father, especially Isaic's father—would accept their subjects' declaration of loyalty and leave it at that. The question why invited scrutiny; it implied that the underlying reasons for the loyalty were relevant.
"Why . . . will I be proud?"
Isaic nodded. "It's one thing to keep on serving the house you've always served. It's another to take pride." His demeanor was impeccable, as always, but a cloud of doubt churned in his eyes.
He's questioning everything, Melakai realized. Right down to the bones. He needs more from me.
"Because you're different, Your Highness. To put it plainly . . ." Melakai glanced at Isaic's stock
y Preserver, towering just behind the Prince's left shoulder, and chose his words carefully. "You have a spine."
Isaic noticed his wariness. "Harad, leave us."
The Preserver made no move to leave. Isaic sighed and repeated his request. Harad remained.
It's hard to plot heresy with a Preserver in the room. Abruptly, Melakai realized that for Isaic, there was always a Preserver in the room. He had never seen Harad eat, sleep, or duck away to use the privy. Surely, he has to do those things eventually. He's still human. Isn't he?
"I've known Harad my whole life, Melakai. He's taken a vow of secrecy and I've spoken plainly in front of him many times. If he wished to bring me down, he could've done so long before now."
You've never tested him like this, Kai thought.
Then Isaic blindsided him. "Do you consider yourself a godly man?"
Of course. The words leapt to his tongue instantly, the easy lie that every Darnothian had to espouse or risk the wrath of the Church. To privately admit otherwise was foolish; to do so in the presence of a Preserver could be deadly.
And yet he hesitated. That automatic answer—of course—burned his tongue every time he used it, but more than that, Isaic knew the dangers of this conversation as well as he did. The question was a dare, and if the Prince was not the man Melakai thought he was, answering it poorly could be the end of him.
Fine. For thirty years he'd managed to stay out of court politics, but when Isaic had given that order in the throne room today, his streak had ended. He'd been luckier than most, but if today was the day, so be it.
"No. Not anymore. I haven't been to a Dawnday sermon in years."
"I'm not talking about listening to sermons."
"And I still say no." They killed my son. Stole my granddaughter. A godly man? Me? I'd be happy to watch them all burn. The words were at his lips.
But he reined them in. Answering a dare was one thing. Hanging himself with his own tongue was another.
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