of itself before stepping around table legs and peering into Puppet’s abandoned shoes. Its movements were uncanny, and it distracted me to the point where I forgot I was uncomfortable and felt myself relax.
“I was wondering about the Amyr, actually.” My eyes remained on the scene unfolding at Puppet’s feet. Another marionette had joined the show, a young girl in a peasant dress. She approached the Tehlin and held out a hand as if trying to give him something. No, she was asking him a question. The Tehlin turned his back on her. She laid a timid hand on his arm. He took a haughty step away. “I was wondering who disbanded them. Emperor Nalto or the church.”
“Still looking,” he admonished more gently then before. “You need to go chase the wind for a while, you are too serious. It will lead you into trouble.” The Tehlin suddenly turned on the girl. Trembling with rage, it menaced her with the book. She took a startled step backward and stumbled to her knees. “The church disbanded them of course. Only an edict from the pontifex had the ability to affect them.” The Tehlin struck the girl with the book. Once, twice, driving her to the ground, where she lay terribly still. “Nalto couldn’t have told them to cross to the other side of the street.”
Some slight motion drew Puppet’s eye. “Oh dear me,” he said, cocking his head toward Wilem. “See what I see. The head bows slightly. The jaw clenches, but the eyes aren’t fixed on anything, aiming the irritation inward. If I were the sort of person who judged by looking, I’d guess Wilem had just lost a bet. Don’t you know the church frowns on gambling?” At Puppet’s feet, the priest brandished the book upward at Wilem.
The Tehlin brought its hands together and turned away from the crumpled woman. It took a stately step or two away and bowed its head as if praying.
I managed to pull my attention away from the tableau and look up at our host. “Puppet?” I asked, “Have you read the
I saw Simmon give Wilem an anxious look, but Puppet didn’t seem to find anything odd about the question. The Tehlin at his feet stood and started to dance and caper about. “Yes.”
“Why would Reis say the
“Reis wouldn’t say any such thing,” Puppet said without looking up from the marionette at his feet. “That’s pure nonsense.”
“But we found a copy of
Puppet shrugged, watching the Tehlin dance at his feet.
“It could be a transcription mistake,” Wilem mused. “Depending on the edition of the book, the church itself might be responsible for changing that piece of information. Emperor Nalto is history’s favorite whipping boy. It could be the church trying to distance itself from the Amyr. They did some terrible things toward the end.”
“Clever clever,” Puppet said. At his feet the Tehlin made a sweeping bow in Wilem’s direction.
I was struck by a sudden idea. “Puppet,” I asked. “Do you know what is behind the locked door on the floor above this one? The large stone door?”
The Tehlin stopped dancing and Puppet looked up. He gave me a long, stern look. His eyes were serious and clear. “I don’t think the four-plate door should be of any concern to a student. Do you?”
I felt myself flush. “No sir.” I looked away from his eyes.
The tension of the moment was broken by the distant sound of the belling tower. Simmon cursed softly. “I’m late,” he said. “I’m sorry Puppet, I’ve got to go.”
Puppet stood and hung the Tehlin on the wall. “It’s time I got back to my reading, regardless,” he said. He moved to the padded chair, sat, and opened a book. “Bring this one back some time.” He gestured in my direction without looking up from his book. “I have some more work to do on him.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The Greater Good
I looked up at Simmon and whispered, “
Sim gave a despairing sigh. “You are
It had been a full span since we had set fire to Ambrose’s rooms, and winter was finally showing its teeth, covering the University with knee-deep drifts of blowing snow. As was always the case when the weather turned inclement, the Archives were full to the brim with industrious students.
Since all the reading holes were occupied, Simmon and I had been forced to bring our books to Tomes. The high-ceilinged, windowless room was more than half full today, but still quiet as a crypt. All the dark stone and muted whispers made the place slightly eerie, making it obvious why students referred to it as Tombs.
“I am studying my physiognomy,” I protested softly. “I was looking at some of Gibea’s diagrams. Look what I found.” I held out a book for him to see.
“Gibea?” Simmon whispered, horrified. “I swear the only reason you study with me is so you can interrupt.” He pulled away from the book I was offering him.
“It’s nothing grotesque,” I protested. “Just . . . here. Just look at what it says here.” Simmon shoved the book away, and my temper flared. “Careful!” I hissed. “This is one of his originals. I found it behind some other books, buried in Dead Ledgers. Lorren will cut off my thumbs if anything happens to it.”
Sim recoiled from the book as if it were red-hot. “An original? Merciful Tehlu, it’s probably written on human skin. Get it away from me!”
I almost joked about how human skin probably wouldn’t take ink, but decided against it when I saw the expression on Sim’s face. Still, my expression must have given me away.
“You’re perverse,” he spat, his voice almost rising to unacceptable levels. “God’s mother, don’t you know he cut apart living men to watch their organs work? I refuse to look at anything that monster was responsible for.”
I set the book down. “You might as well give up studying medicine then,” I said as gently as possible. “Gibea’s research on the human body was the most thorough ever done. His journals are the backbone of modern physic.”
Simmon’s face stayed hard and he leaned forward so he could speak softly and still be heard. “When the Amyr moved against the duke, they found the bones of twenty thousand people. Great pits of bones and ashes. Women and children. Twenty thousand!” Simmon sputtered a bit before he could continue. “And those are just the ones they found.”
I let him calm himself a bit before I said, “Gibea wrote twenty-three volumes concerning the machinery of the body,” I pointed out as gently as I could. “When the Amyr moved against him, part of his estate burned, four of those volumes and all his notes were lost. Ask Master Arwyl what he would give to have those volumes whole again.”
Simmon brought his hand down hard on the tabletop, causing several students to look in our direction. “Dammit!” he hissed. “I grew up thirty miles from Gibea! From my father’s hills you can see the ruins on a cloudless day!”
That stilled me. If Sim’s family lands were that close, his ancestors must have been fealty-bound to Gibea. That meant they might have been forced to help him gather subjects for his experiments. Some of his family might have ended up in the pits of bone and ash themselves.
I waited a long while before I whispered again, “I didn’t know.”
He regained most of his composure. “We don’t talk about it,” he said stiffly, brushing the hair out of his eyes.
We bent to our studies, and it was an hour before Simmon spoke again. “What did you find?” he asked too casually, as if not wanting to admit his curiosity.
“Here on the inner leaf,” I whispered excitedly. I opened the cover and Sim’s face twisted unconsciously as he looked down at the page, as if the book smelled of death.
“. . . spilled it all over.” I heard a voice as a pair of older students strolled into the hall. By their rich clothes I could tell they were both nobility, and while they weren’t shouting, they weren’t making any effort to be quiet, either. “Anisat made him clear up the mess before he let him wash off. He’ll smell like urea for a span of
