Moreau caught her eye. “My beasts stay for this.”
Gegenteil raised an eyebrow. “You two have come a long way in a very short span of time, it seems.”
Moreau shrugged while Loretta did not deign to respond.
“Uh, very well then,” Jacquemin said, clearly caught off guard. He cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I don’t actually know if this holds any sort of relevance or not, but I began reviewing all my findings about Sauvage.”
“And what did you find?” Moreau asked.
Loretta had, for once, gone completely still. She leaned forward over a table, ears perked forward, all pretense of hiding her interest completely gone.
“It’s her seeds,” Jacquemin said. “There was nothing particularly noteworthy about her bestia seed. A weasel is a weasel.”
Loretta’s ears went back and her tail twitched. A spike of irritation shot through her. Apparently, her control wasn’t as good as she’d thought.
Jacquemin cleared his throat again. For once he’d noticed. “Her orbis seed, dance phenomenon…I couldn’t find anything else like it.”
“The church and wizards are discovering new phenomena and animals all the time,” Moreau said. “I expect seeds wouldn’t be too different.”
“Nor would I, usually,” Jacquemin acknowledged. “Only, the more I researched, the more I realized that there’s a fundamental difference between Sauvage’s phenomenon orbis and every other phenomenon seed known to us.”
“And that is?” Loretta said through clenched teeth. Her tail twitched wildly behind her. It was all she could do not to leap over the table, grab the youthful wizard by his ink-stained robes and shake him until the answer fell out.
“Dance is a human invention,” Jacquemin said. “All other phenomenon types are found in nature. Oh sure, we have some animals that can ‘dance’—weasels are actually included in this group, performing a kind of war dance before gleefully killing…not immediately relevant. My point is that Sauvage’s seed doesn’t just reflect sporadic hopping about. She responds to music and moves decidedly like a human, if with a grace no human could ever hope to master. She’s not a lunar eclipse, or a storm, or a chemical reaction…her seed might be properly re-categorized as a sub-category of phenomenon. Human phenomenon, if you will.”
Malin yawned. Loud and long, drawing the eye of everyone in the room. She blinked, then turned red as she realized what she’d done. “Sorry. That was just…lots of boring words I don’t get.”
“I’m not entirely sure I understand the significance of this either,” Moreau said. “She doesn’t have a new type of seed, but she has a kind that you’ve never seen before?”
“Essentially,” the wizard said, bobbing his head up and down. “Not a new typing altogether, but a subcategory of typing unlike any ever seen. She’s like a gibbon.”
Moreau blinked. Slowly. “I think you meant for that to clarify things. It didn’t.”
“Gibbons are the only ape classified as lesser apes instead of great apes,” Jacquemin said. “Still apes, but a special classification all unto themselves.”
Loretta’s eye began to twitch. “First I’m a bloody weasel. Now I’m a ‘lesser ape.’” She knew what to expect from Gegenteil now, perhaps she could get around her and toss Jacquemin through that new window of his.
“And the significance of this is?” Moreau asked. “Apart from aggravating Sauvage, though that’s not really hard to do.”
Loretta threw him a vicious glare. He grinned back at her. Bastard.
“It might be nothing,” Jacquemin admitted. “But it might—and I emphasize the word might—mean that there’s something to her story. At the very least, she requires further study. I’ll publish an article that—”
“No!” Loretta cried out at the same time as Moreau.
“Excuse me?” Jacquemin said, drawing himself up and crossing his arms. “This is a scientific find. It needs to be shared with the other wizards and the world at large. Keepers cannot do their jobs effectively if they are not properly appraised.”
“I’m not asking you to never publish your findings,” Moreau said. “But if Sauvage’s story is true…consider.”
Gefahr looked back and forth at all of them. “I’m confused. What exactly is Sauvage’s story?”
“Ooh,” Malin said in a false undertone. “It’s a good one. We’ll pop some corn and I’ll tell you later.”
Jacquemin looked on, uncomprehending. He looked over to Gegenteil.
“It might be wise to heed their advice,” she said. “If someone was responsible for forcing Sauvage to Fall, then that someone won’t want word of it spreading. And…there could be other consequences.”
“My Goddess,” Jacquemin said, a light snapping into his eyes. “That could change…everything. Oh, Goddess….”
“So, we’re agreed?” Moreau asked. “Secret until we know more and can guarantee that any public declarations won’t result in our execution or excommunication?”
Loretta gulped. She hadn’t considered that last one. She did not want to die, but she was willing to for her cause. Her immortal soul though…that thought was terrifying.
Jacquemin’s shoulders slumped. “Agreed.”
The disgruntled wizard began to levitate his books back to their shelves.
As he did, Moreau’s eyes alit on one of the open pages and went wide. “Stop!”
Jacquemin froze, book held in place midair. Loretta wasn’t sure that she would ever get used to that. The phantom sensation of an unseen force holding her to the ground, rendering her helpless washed over her, and with it a maelstrom of betrayal, hurt, and violation. She swallowed it down as she would were she trying not to sick up in public. Would that pathetic feeling ever leave her? She suddenly felt unclean. With a deliberate effort, concentrated upon Moreau.
Something was happening that she could not afford to miss. Also, it took her away from those memories and the emotions they conjured up.
“This,” he said, pointing to a spot on the page. “That sentence, it’s using symbols that aren’t letters…” he picked the book up out of the air and turned it about, running a finger over the spot he’d been indicating. Loretta dearly wished she still possessed the ability to read.
“It’s more of an equation than a sentence really,” Moreau said quietly, more to himself than anyone else.
“I should hope so,” Jacquemin said. “It’s Creoscript. The systematic codification of universal energies we mages use. Without a formal system, we’d all be making up our own and any sense of unity or collaboration would fall apart. Can you imagine if every wizard was to use their own system?” He shook his head. “So much wasted time and potential.”
“I need to borrow this,” Moreau said, making a break for the exit.
Jacquemin blinked but made no move to stop him. “I’m keeping your Gefahr as long as you’re keeping my book!”
Gefahr made a decidedly unhappy sound of dismay as Moreau waved over his shoulder and vanished from sight.
Gegenteil sighed and turned to Loretta. “You may want to go after him. Grandmother wanted to see him when he finished up here.”
Loretta suppressed a curse and tossed a sympathetic look at Gefahr. “Malin, would you mind keeping Gefahr company?”
“Sure,” Malin said. “I’ll tell her all about how your sister betrayed you, and that wizard cursed you.”
“Wow,” Loretta said flatly. “Thanks, Malin.”
“No problem,” Malin said with a cheerful wave.
“Wait,” Gefahr said, widened eyes affixing upon Jacquemin as Loretta hurried from the room. “A wizard did what?
Loretta found Moreau in his own quarters, seated at his writing table, the documents spread out before him, along with Jacquemin’s book and several new pieces of parchment. Crumpled papers littered the floor around him and the room was completely unmade. Her enhanced sense of smell made her wrinkle her nose. He must have refused to allow the s
ervants to come in and clean.
“Moreau,” she said, closing the door behind herself.
He was muttering under his breath and did not seem to hear her. She quietly made her way to his side and called again, softly, “Moreau.”
He jerked up from the pages, a manic gleam in his eye. “I’ve got it! Loretta, I’ve got it!”
Her heart leapt. He’d used her name. Again. She swallowed.
“What did you get?” she asked, trying to keep her voice measured. The composure she’d steadily been regaining threatened to falter like a pile of rounded stones stacked atop each other. He’d said her name.
“The code,” he said. “Or rather, codes. That’s what’s been so confusing about this whole thing.” He slapped his hand on one of the pages taken from the brigand’s fort. “I kept trying to decipher what I thought was only a single code, but there are in fact two. And they don’t correlate to each other—completely different systems. I kept thinking it was one needlessly complex puzzle, but it’s just two different puzzles, and I’ve been swapping the pieces. It’s starting to make sense.”
She smiled softly at him. “Where did you learn to decode secret messages?”
“Back when I was a harbor master,” he said absently, returning his gaze to the pages. “We had a thieves guild and ring of smugglers. They had to communicate, so they’d often hide messages in things like cargo manifests.”
She blinked. He’d been a harbor master? How on earth had he come to be in that pathetic little cabin Rodriquez had drawn him out of? This probably wasn’t the best time to ask.
“It was being reminded of your story that got me thinking,” he said. “That and seeing the structure Jacquemin’s books use to codify…well, the pattern is the key to deciphering the one, which means the other has a different key, but it makes so much more sense now.”
“Good,” Loretta said. “But if there’s two codes, doesn’t that imply that there are two different messages?”
“Certainly,” Moreau said. “Which is troubling enough on its own, but more troubling is that one of them is using this Creoscript of Jacquemin’s.”
Loretta nodded slowly. “Because that implies that one of these groups is highly familiar with it, implying that they are wizards.”
“Your Lorenz Gage,” Moreau asked. “You said he was a merchant?”
Loretta nodded. “I did.”
Moreau shook his head and let that sink into both of their minds.
“Gegenteil said the vizcondesa wants to see you,” Loretta said. “You should wash first.”
Moreau looked up at her with uncomprehending eyes. “Wash?”
Loretta looked pointedly at him. Then at his clothes. Then at the room around them.
“Ah,” Moreau said. “Right. Hygiene. I’d just gotten back in the habit of maintaining that.”
Loretta wrinkled her nose. “Please make sure that you keep that habit. For all our sakes.”
Moreau laughed.
Loretta looked back at the documents. “The timing is good. At least now you can report to Velazquez that you’ve made some progress with these.”
“No.” Moreau stood up and suddenly she was looking up at him.
“Beg pardon?”
He sighed. “The Vizcondesa cannot know that these documents survived.”
Loretta scowled. “She is diamond souled, your employer, and your noble superior. It is your duty as a knight, to say nothing of your civic responsibility as a peer of Freutsche, to inform her of this.”
“Except that my true employer is Conde Rodriquez,” Moreau said.
Loretta stared. “You’re a spy?”
“The Vizcondesa’s wealth and power have been growing unusually fast these last years,” Moreau said. “The conde asked me to report back to him my findings.”
Report back to him? Who exactly did Rodriquez think he was? He might be a celebrated veteran and a high ranked nobleman but he clearly thought too highly of himself. He should be answering to a diamond souled, not commanding covert operations on his own.
“And you just leapt when he asked, did you?”
He gave her a small smile. “Something like that. You were actually the factor that changed my mind. If I hadn’t accepted, he would have killed you.”
Loretta’s mouth opened, then closed. Moreau hadn’t just saved her life twice, he’d saved it three times. When he’d dragged her to the hot spring, when he’d shot that Rampant beast on the road, and once when she hadn’t even been aware of how helpless she’d been. Cold swept through her. Then warmth. He’d been looking out for her since before she’d even recovered herself.
“So, he has your loyalty?” she said, trying to wrap her mind around what she’d just learned.
“Freutsche has my loyalty,” Moreau said with firmness. “If there had been nothing worth reporting, then it wouldn’t matter. I was never here to sabotage the vizcondesa.”
“But there is something worth reporting?” Loretta asked.
Moreau scowled. “I’m not sure. Before we left, the vizcondesa mentioned tracks being the way of the future. She has a particular fascination with them at any rate. And these documents…I need to spend more time with them, but they appear to be discussing plans for a laying down some kind of railway through the Leloup estates.”
That could just be a coincidence. It could also be a coincidence that Lorenz Gage was both a wizard and a merchant, and they’d uncovered some kind of covert operation using merchants and wizard coding for secret messages.
“I will keep your secret,” Loretta said, then offered up a grin. “I mean, I know you could make me keep it with your anima. But, for whatever it’s worth, you won’t have to.”
A hasty bath, shave, and change of clothes later, and they were being brought into the vizcondesa’s tea room. Moreau had not been understating the woman’s fascination with tracks. Moreau was invited to sit, and Loretta made herself fade into the background. The dismissal from the vizcondesa would have stung only a short while ago, and Loretta could not say with any honesty that she cared for it, but it did come with its advantages.
Slowly, she began to circle the room. The trick was to move without being jittery. If one were steady and graceful, one was ignored. It was better than attempting to stand still behind Moreau and making a fool of herself.
The vizcondesa seemed to quickly forget that she was there. The pair exchanged small talk and sipped tea delivered on mobile trays that ran along the tracks winding the room. It was shocking how tedious the whole affair was when viewed from the outside looking in, rather than being a participant. Still more shocking, Moreau minded his tongue and played the game reasonably well. Loretta hadn’t thought him capable of such a feat of restraint after the way he’d treated Una Leloup. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised. Her knight keeper had more layers than she had credited him.
Finally, the purpose of the summons became clear as the vizcondesa produced an envelope and withdrew a letter. “Baronesa Moreau wrote to me a short time ago. Her letter arrived while you were still away. I have been deliberating my response.”
Loretta’s ears and tail shot straight up and she affixed her gaze upon Moreau. Baronesa Moreau?
“Would that I had your restraint,” Moreau said dryly. “My sister has a skill for…provoking poorly thought out reactions from me.”
The vizcondesa smiled like a leopard. “She wants me to send you for a visit. To establish a culture of mutual cooperation and respect between our companies.”
Moreau did not bother to restrain his reaction this time, and Loretta nearly choked trying to hold back her laughter. He looked like a child force fed a dish of sour vegetables. “And what would you have of me, my Lady?”
The vizcondesa laughed, fanning herself with the letter. “Asking that nearly tied your tongue in a square knot, didn’t it?”
“Very nearly,” Moreau admitted. “But I am a knight of The Company of Golden Swords. I will do as
commanded.”
Yes, he played this game much better than Loretta had credited him.
The vizcondesa stopped flapping the letter. “Prove it. I’ll not have a house with divided loyalties, and your sister seems determined to set herself up as my rival. I will send you to her, and you will either join her ranks or return to me with information that is valuable.”
“You want me to spy on my own flesh and blood,” Moreau said flatly.
“Spying is such a crude word,” the vizcondesa said. “But yes. If you’re not comfortable with that, betray me now and join her company instead. I’ll not have the murky issue of your loyalty lingering above our contract.”
Moreau slowly nodded. “As you wish.”
They resumed tea, though they finished up much more quickly than Loretta thought proper. Then again, the vizcondesa had gotten what she wanted, so why prolong things? Perhaps it was a mercy, considering the tumult of emotions roiling through her and Moreau’s roots. She hadn’t realized a man could feel such a complicated mix of emotions. She’d always thought of men as the simpler sex. If what she was sensing through the roots was accurate, there was nothing simple about what Moreau was feeling.
She followed him from the room, down the hall, and onto a private balcony. He clutched the railing and stared out beyond the balcony. From their vantage, they could see the rail mounted Gatling gun positioned to fire over the wall, its multiple barrels gleaming in the sunlight.
Loretta took up position beside him and put a hand on his arm. “Complicated relationship?”
“To say the least,” Moreau said.
“Sisters…are difficult,” Loretta admitted. “What do you think? About this test of loyalty?”
“That there aren’t any good options,” Moreau said.
Loretta had to agree. He could join his sister’s company, which would free of him of Rodriquez and Velazquez, but put him under someone with whom he clearly had a strained relationship. Or, he could betray his own flesh and blood to someone who may be involved in a conspiracy against the aristocracy of the realm.
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