Guard, Petronus turned them away.
“The Gypsy Scouts guard the Son of P’Andro Whym now,” he told them. “If you would be true to your vows, obey me now. Bury your uniforms and take up new lives far away from here.”
Neb had never seen anything like it. To a man, they stripped naked, buried their uniforms in the forest floor and left.
That had been two weeks ago.
Now, the wagons full of books and artifacts had formed a steady stream, two or three per week. Androfrancine refugees and property from the Emerald Coasts, from the Summer Papal Palace and even a few from the City States on the Delta trickled into the Ninefold Forest. Word of the restoration had spread throughout the Named Lands, and a corps of engineers already worked hard at digging its deep basements.
And Neb worked with Isaak to inventory each wagon so that the information would be recorded on the metal man’s memory scroll.
He watched the metal man work, his eye shutters opening and closing rapidly as he wrote. “Sethbert will arrive day after tomorrow,” Neb said.
Isaak looked up. “What do you think they will do with him?”
Neb shrugged. “Rudolfo means to keep him on Tormentor’s Row, to let his physicians do their redemptive work upon him with their knives.”
He’d studied those darker aspects of the Whymer cult, and shuddered to think of what that meant. The varying cuts had names, and each of them folded into the others until they formed a vast Whymer’s Maze of lacerations.
When Isaak said nothing, Neb continued, “But Petronus wants to try him for the Desolation of…” He saw the mechanical flinch and let the words fall off. “I’m sorry, Isaak.”
Isaak shook his head. “You have nothing to apologize for, Brother Nebios. A part of me thinks he deserves justice for his crimes.”
Neb nodded. “When I met Petronus, I was standing under Sethbert’s canopy, studying the position of his guards.” He paused. Had it really been so many months ago? “I’d stolen scout magicks from Lady Tam, and intended to use them in order to kill Sethbert.”
Isaak’s eyes flashed. “You knew what he had done?”
Neb nodded. “I did. But Petronus saw me and stopped me.”
Isaak pondered this. “You were a boy who survived the spell. Now you’re a hero of the Androfrancine Order. Do you believe your restraint led to these things?”
He chuckled, putting down the book he’d just lifted up from the wagon. “I had no restraint of my own. Petronus restrained me.”
Isaak fixed his eyes on him again. “But are you glad for it?”
Neb thought about this. “I think so. Yes,” he said.
Isaak looked to a point beyond Neb now and stood. “Lady Tam,” he said. “An unexpected delight.”
Neb looked up and blushed. Lady Tam still radiated beauty, though now it was clear that she wasn’t half as pretty as Winters. Still she was beautiful, and when she smiled at him he felt his face grow red. “Hello, Isaak,” she said, inclining her head to each of them. “Nebios.” She smiled. “How is the inventory?”
Now Neb stood as well. “We’ve found three mechanicals. Small ones, to be sure, but two of them are still in good repair.”
“I should be able to restore the third,” Isaak said. “It appears to have slipped a gear.”
Jin Li Tam looked to the wagon, and Neb thought for a second that her face registered surprise. He followed her eyes and saw the golden bird in its golden cage, its wings hanging broken and its neck twitching. “Where did this wagon come from?” she asked.
Neb stared at it. Something about the golden bird nagged at him. He suddenly smelled the sulfur and ozone of Windwir’s firestorm, and he flinched.
Isaak looked at the registry. “This one is from the Emerald Coasts,” he said. “A private collection.”
He saw the bird flying low to the ground, its golden fe?€ its golathers steaming. It was at Windwir, he realized. Neb opened his mouth and a stream of unintelligible words tumbled out, fragments of scripture jumbled together with glossolalia. He closed his mouth quickly and looked at Jin Li Tam.
She stared at him. “Neb?”
He waited for the tension to leave his throat. Finally, he spoke. “I saw this bird at Windwir.”
Neb watched her eyes narrow and her jawline tighten. “Really?”
He nodded. “I did.”
She nodded, her eyes suddenly far away. “I hope you can fix it,” she said. Then, her eyes returned to the present. “Petronus is calling for you both,” she said. She paused. “Take him that bird. Tell him I said I will speak to him about it later.”
Neb grabbed up his stack of papers. He probably wanted to talk about the council.
The Council of Bishops was just a few weeks away. Many of the gravediggers who had come north with Neb had been put to work building bleachers and crafting the massive tents to contain it. The last birds of invitation were to go out tomorrow.
Neb started toward the manor and the suite of offices they had grown into, then realized he was being rude, and turned to wait for Lady Tam and Isaak.
Isaak held the birdcage in his hands.
Jin Li Tam was staring at it, he realized, and Neb had never seen a more profound look of sadness upon her face.
Petronus
Petronus’s office adjoined the converted guest room that Neb and Isaak worked from. The steward had insisted that he have privacy and wouldn’t hear of him using his living quarters as his work space. Instead, they moved a small desk, some bookshelves and three chairs into a large walk-in closet. The closet even had a small window that opened out on one of the manor’s many gardens. As spring hurried on, Petronus could smell the flowers blooming, though of course he had to stand on his desk to see them.
He looked up the knock on his door. “Come in,” he said.
Neb came in first, and Petronus swore that every time he saw the boy he was taller. His shoulders had broadened and he even had the beginnings of a beard, trimmed.as neatly as a boy could manage. He wore the robes smartly, though he still walked in them as if they weren’t really his, as if he weren’t really a member of the Order. “You called for us, Excellency?”
“Come in and sit down,” Petronus said.
Isaak limped in behind Neb. He carried a small metal bird in a dented cage. The bird twitched and clicked. They both sat in the waiting chairs.
“What do you have there?” Petronus asked.
Isaak put the cage on the desk. “It is a mechanical. Jin Li Tam said she would speak with you about it later.”
Neb spoke up. “I think it was in Windwir when the city fell.”
Petronus studied the bird. It looked familiar. Like something he had seen in someone’s home. “I’ll look forward to Lady Tam’s explanation. Meanwhile…” Petronus reached beneath his desk and pulled out the cloth- wrapped object that had arrived by rider earlier this morning. He’d recognized it immediately, of course. It was from the Papal Offices in the Summer Palace, one of a few hand cannons that had been restored before the Order decided it dishonored kin-clave to make them. He laid it on his desk. “This arrived from the new Overseer, Erlund. It’s what Oriv employed to… well, to end his life.” He unwrapped it and watched Neb’s eyes go wide. “It was used during the days of the Younger Gods, long before the Old World and P’Andro Whym.” He looked from Neb to Isaak. “This is familiar to you?”
Isaak nodded. “It is, Father.” Petronus wasn’t sure why the metal man insisted on the ancient title, but it pleased him. It seemed more humble.
“You recognize it from your time in the library?”
The metal man shook his head. “No, Father. I was not permitted to work with any weaponry apart from the spell.” Exhaust leaked out from his back and his gears whirred. “Oriv used it when Lord Rudolfo and Lady Tam took
