Canticle

For us all, he thought now as he looked down to the words that seemed to blur into one singular smudge upon the parchment. Finally, he’d reached the last page and he could lay this work to rest for now in the hopes of coming back to it when this more present need for him had passed.

He heard Grymlis’s firm knock at the door and looked up. “Come in,” he said.

The Gray Guard looked troubled, but that did not surprise him. He’d not taken Petronus and Esarov’s plan well when Petronus had shared it with him some days past, and Petronus did not expect him to warm to it. He came in and closed the door behind him. “I’m told that they’ll be meeting in two days’ time,” he said.

Petronus nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

“And you’re certain you wish do this?” There was a firmness to the line of his jaw and a fierceness in his eye. “We can leave,” he said, “right now.”

Petronus shook his head. “I’m not sure we can, Grymlis.” And more importantly, I’m not sure we should. Freeing Charles was paramount, but ending the civil war on the Delta took equal place. The lack of stability was opening a door, he suspected, to something potentially far worse, and they could not be ready for it if they were twisted and tangled into conflict among themselves. Already, he’d heard word that Meirov of Pylos was shoring up her borders and mobilizing a larger force with eyes turned north. More caravans had been sacked and burned in recent days; ragged groups from his former Order slaughtered as they pushed their way toward the relative safety of Rudolfo’s Ninefold Forest. And in Turam, the old king had pushed himself up out of his lethargic illness long enough to appoint one of his former generals to be a strong steward of that throne. They had shored up the bond of kin-clave with Pylos, its neighbor to the east, and with the in de pen dent city-states along the northern beaches of the Emerald Coasts. He pointed to the only other chair in the room. “Sit with me, Grymlis.”

Grymlis sat, his discomfort obvious. When his eyes met Petronus’s they were the color of stormy skies. “I’ll speak plainly, Father,” he said. “This is foolhardy, Charles or no Charles.”

Petronus sighed and leaned back into the chair, putting down his pen. “It may be. But I don’t see another way through this Whymer Maze.”

The captain’s eyes narrowed. “You believe this strongly enough to die for it?”

Petronus chuckled but didn’t know why he saw humor in it. “I’m not sure what I believe enters into this gamble of mine. If Charles is alive and if he knows something of this so-called Sanctuary of Light, it may save the Named Lands from something terrible at the very worst. And at the very best, it may bring back something that was lost to us.” He looked back to the stack of papers, picked them up and used the flat surface of the table to line up all of the edges. He paused and looked for the bit of twine he’d been using. “But you’re not here for that, I’m certain. You already know that my stubbornness frequently outpaces my common sense.” He found the twine and laid it out on the table, placing the now-squared papers upon it and starting the knots that would hold the sizeable bundle in place.

Grymlis shook his head. “I’ve gotten word from Esarov’s birder. Days late, but still better than not knowing at all.”

Petronus looked up, his finger marking his place on the knot. “From the line?”

He nodded. “Yes.” He dug into his pocket and withdrew a crumpled note. Grymlis passed it over.

Petronus took it and read it quickly. “So now Gypsy Scouts man the post in Caldus Bay and Rudolfo has found us out.”

He’d been skeptical of Grymlis’s plan to maintain that post, but he’d not imagined that it would be Rudolfo himself who would stumble upon it. He’d been more fearful that whoever had wanted him dead would send more blood-magicked emissaries to finish that first would-be assassin’s work. Instead, the Gypsy King himself had intercepted one of his birds and written his own message into it.

He looked at the note again. “What do you imagine he wants?”

Grymlis looked angry. “I don’t know what he wants, but my men are not his for the ordering. I’ll have strong words with him for that when he arrives.”

When he arrives? Petronus felt his breath catch. “Rudolfo? He’s coming here?”

Grymlis nodded slowly. “Aye. Esarov sent the pirate to fetch him.”

What game of Queen’s War did that Democrat play? And what madness had Rudolfo, with a new wife and child at home, traipsing about the countryside seeking his audience? Why hadn’t he simply sent a bird?

Esarov had to know that bringing the Named Lands most powerful man into the heart of a civil war deeply compromised an already tenuous kin-clave between the Entrolusians and the Gypsies. His mind turned to the coming trial, and he spun the cipher of this new lockbox. Could Rudolfo bring something to bear on this that he’d not thought about?

When the cipher caught, he felt the clicking in his brain and slapped his leg. “He intends to send Charles with the Gypsy King.”

Grymlis’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not certain that Charles is even alive.”

But buried beneath his common sense, Petronus suspected that indeed he was alive and that Esarov knew that the old Arch-Engineer was perhaps the greatest living treasure left to the Named Lands, both for what he could do and for what he guarded-some corner of the light that they had all feared lost.

At least, he thought, that mad Democrat realized that Charles was safer under Rudolfo’s care.

Grymlis stood. “He’ll be here inside of a week, but I’m not sure you will be.”

Petronus nodded. “I’m not sure I will, either.” He took the stack of papers and opened the satchel as wide as it would go. Even that wasn’t enough, and the papers bent as he shoved them inside. “Regardless,” he said, “I would have you pass this to Rudolfo. But discreetly; keep it away from Esarov’s men.” He thought for a moment. “My notes are coded; Isaak or one of the others should be able to cipher them out.”

He handed the satchel to Grymlis, who stood. When he spoke, his voice was a growl. “You marching off to trial. Rudolfo on the ride with barely a squad. I hope it isn’t catching.”

Petronus pondered this. “You hope what isn’t catching?”

“Foolishness,” he said. Then Grymlis opened the door and left, the satchel tucked beneath his cloak.

Petronus watched the door for a long time before looking back to his empty desk. He wondered what he would do now while he waited, how he would bide his time until Esarov told him whether or not Erlund was going to play at this new game. Esarov swore with complete confidence that the betrayal of Windwir was within, that they had been duped into believing in an outside threat by complex and terrible conspiracy. Vlad Li Tam had asserted without doubt that their enemy lay beyond, and that crafty old spymaster had left, Petronus believed, to find it and give name to it.

He looked to the map of the Named Lands that decorated the wall of his simple room. He saw Windwir at its center, as it should be, and traced the First River, the one the Gypsies called Rajblood, up through the circling hills, across the Prairie Seas and into the Ninefold Forest.

“And what are you seeking, Rudolfo, so far from home in these perilous times?” he asked.

Standing slowly, he walked to the map and placed a finger at its center.

The purported note from Charles came back into his mind.

The library has fallen by treachery, it had said.

That night, Petronus slept and dreamed of bone fields and blood and dark-winged birds.

When he awakened in the morning it was as if he hadn’t slept at all.

Chapter 13

Winters

Winters winced as she lowered herself into the steaming water, feeling the bite of it in the deep cuts that lacerated her shoulders, sides and back. She’d been home now for four days, and though she’d healed considerably, the minerals in the water still stung. Clutching the cake of soap, she swam out farther into the pool and dove down, letting the heat of it soak into her. When she broke the surface, she shook the water from her hair and floated on her back. The lamplight danced over the cave’s high ceiling, and the bits of quartz and iron pyrite gave the illusion of domed starshine above her. She sighed and kicked her feet slightly, stretching her arms out cruciform and feeling the water lick the sides of her breasts and neck.