Canticle

room to fall into his wooden chair and collapse it beneath the weight.

The voice was familiar to him. A voice from long ago that he could not place. Petronus pushed himself back into the corner, where his cot met the wall, still holding the knife out ahead of him though he knew it was a useless gesture. He watched the wind sweep his room, breaking furniture, scattering papers, shattering dishes as it went. It was impossible to know how many were in the shack now, but he heard the muffled grunts and cries of at least five men amid the magick-dulled clank of steel. Twice, he heard heavy bodies falling to the floor, and once he heard the hushed fluid whistle of a punctured lung. The fight seemed to last for an hour, though Petronus knew it could only be minutes.

The fire sparked and went out as something fell into it and the room went dark. The scuffling continued, then suddenly stopped.

Petronus heard scrambling and hushed whispers. He thought he heard the words “Both dead.”

The new voice was near him now when it spoke next. “Where is your constable?”

Petronus blinked, not sure he was truly being addressed until the voice asked again, this time louder. “Third house down from the inn,” he finally said. When he spoke, his voice shook.

“Balthus, quietly borrow the good man’s manacles.”

They’ve taken him alive. “I have rope in the boathouse,” Petronus offered.

“Rope won’t hold him. Not until his magicks wear off. And I don’t know how long the kallacaine will keep him down.” The familiarity of the voice nagged Petronus. He’d heard it long ago, but he’d also heard it more recently. He added it to what he already knew. They were magicked, and they were versed in pharmaceuticals. There were six of them, but two were now dead. And he knew their leader from somewhere.

“Let me see your arm,” the voice said.

A spark flared, and the lantern glowed to life. The room was a shambles of papers, broken glass and pottery, overturned furniture. His front door was down and his three windows were out.

Petronus extended his arm, feeling the sting of the cut. “It’s not bad,” he said. He felt fingers gently pushing back the bloody sleeve and opened his mouth to ask who exactly his rescuer was when the realization struck him like a trout strikes a line. Grymlis.

Petronus didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until he heard the old soldier’s grunt. “Yes, Father.”

He still calls me by my title. The last time he’d seen the Gray Guard captain, he’d sent him and his soldiers away. With Rudolfo’s Gypsy Scouts to protect the new library there’d been no role for the scattered leftovers of the Androfrancine army.

Once, years ago, Grymlis had been the captain who carried out one of Petronus’s darker orders. The Marshers had attacked the Order’s protectorate and ransacked a convoy; Petronus had sent the Gray Guard up into their lands to burn out a village as reprisal. They’d left the dead unburied, adding grievous insult to their message, and the young Pope had ordered that weathered captain to show him the village so that he would understand fully what he’d done.

Not long after, Petronus had left the Order and Grymlis had gone on to serve Introspect, and for a time, Sethbert’s puppet, Pope Resolute.

“The last time I saw you,” Petronus said, “you were burying your uniform in the Ninefold Forest.”

Grymlis chuckled. “Aye, Father.” He was cleaning and dressing the wound now, his face close enough that Petronus could see its dim outline in the lantern light.

A question chewed at him. Dozens did, Petronus realized, but he pushed them aside and ordered them as best he could. “How did you know to be here tonight?”

“I’ve had two men on shifts in Caldus Bay since the week you returned from the Forest,” Grymlis said.

Magicked this entire time, Petronus thought. There was a clatter in the doorway and soft footfalls as Balthus returned with the manacles. “Chain him in the boathouse,” Grymlis said, “and gag him.” The old soldier finished bandaging Petronus’s arm and then stood. “When you’re finished, load Marco and Tyrn into the boat and cover them. We’ll bury them in the bay.”

Petronus opened his mouth to protest, but Grymlis must’ve seen it. “They’ve no kin to claim them. Their kin were in Windwir.” Grymlis paused. “And it’s better that we not be seen.”

Petronus watched as the room began to right itself. The unbroken pieces of furniture were tipped back into their proper places, and the broom on his wall, seemingly of its own volition, went to work on the floors. He stood and joined in, gathering up the scattered pages of his work.

Another question. “You’ve had two men watching me for more than half of a year,” he said. “But you knew to have more here tonight.”

Six men, he thought. And that had been barely enough for the task at hand.

His attacker came under a new kind of magick or-here, his stomach sank-a very old kind. But not even the Androfrancines had dabbled much in blood magick, not until Xhum Y’Zir’s spell. He’d read stories, of course, from the Year of the Falling Moon and the early days of the War of the Weeping Czar. Blood magicks fivefold more potent than the powders they made from the earth, making one man a squad in and of himself. If he hadn’t hesitated, if he hadn’t taken the time to speak, I would be dead now.

Grymlis spoke. “Trouble brews in the Named Lands and beyond. We had a bird four nights back. Someone means to finish the work Sethbert started.”

Thus shall the sins of P’Andro Whym be visited upon his children. The words penetrated him like a knife, and his eyes went involuntarily to the satchel. Someone meant to exterminate the last of the Androfrancine remnant. “But who?”

“It smells of Tam,” Grymlis said. “But the note was unclear. It bid us watch over you. It arrived coded and in Whymer script.”

Petronus shook his head. “I don’t think Tam is behind it. I believe what he told me; Vlad Li Tam dismantled his network and left the Named Lands with his sons and daughters.” He thought about it for a moment. “And the warning was anonymous?”

“Yes.”

A Whymer Maze, Petronus thought. And with the Named Lands sliding further and further into political and economic collapse it would be hard to know what nations had working intelligence operatives. Pylos, Turam and the Entrolusian Delta had their hands full with insurrection and revolution. And based on the birds he’d received over the last fortnight, the unrest was spreading into the Emerald Coasts and spilling over to the Divided Isles and their frontier counties.

Perhaps it was the Gypsy? Rudolfo’s Ninefold Forest Houses were the only houses thriving-and how could they not? Petronus had passed to him all the wealth and holdings of the Androfrancine Order, including House Li Tam’s sizable wealth.

Certainly, their last meeting on the Prairie Sea just hours after Petronus had executed Sethbert had been tense.

The Gypsy King had drawn his sword upon approach, and Petronus thought for a moment that the enraged Rudolfo might actually kill him for ending the line of papal succession. But Rudolfo was a clever man-at some point he would understand that Petronus had granted him a favor by snapping the Order’s neck, leaving him unshackled by two thousand years of Androfrancine tradition and backward dreaming.

“Could it have been Rudolfo?” he asked. “Could he have warned us?”

“It’s possible, Father. He has the assets for intelligence, certainly. But why the cover of anonymity? You gave him Guardianship during the war.” Now Grymlis’s voice choked with anger. Petronus could hear leagues spent on the Fivefold Path of Grief in the old captain’s voice. “And who would punish us beyond Windwir?”

It is all related.

“Perhaps,” Petronus said, “we’ll know more once our guest wakes up.”

“Meanwhile,” Grymlis said, “you should pack. We’ve scouted a new location for your work.”

He knows about my work. Of course he does, Petronus realized, if he’s been watching all this time. He opened his mouth to protest and then closed it. Grymlis and his men had saved his life tonight. At the very best, he’d be dead now but for them. At the very worst, his attacker would have been most effectively meting out his promise of pain.

He reached out a shaking hand, found Grymlis’s shoulder and squeezed it. “I’m glad you didn’t listen to me when I sent you and your men away.”