The bells pealed outside the window. I might have heard voices between each strike of the heavy clapper against the sound bow. “Why don’t you tell us why the bells are ringing, Hradian? Is the Archbishop even alive?”
He nodded, and I heard a long sigh whisper from Bolt as he squeezed his eyes shut against some private pain. Hradian looked at me as if I’d somehow managed to read his private letters, but he gave me one slow nod.
“There were supposed to be others here,” he said. “I was told to seek an older man or, failing that, an Elanian woman. In their absence, I have little choice but to bring you, Lord Dura.”
I favored Hradian with a humorless smile. “It’s so nice to be wanted. I’ll try not to disappoint His Stupendousness.”
Hradian stiffened at the jibe. “The Archbishop is to be referred to as Holiness or Excellence, and nothing else. I and the rest of the cosp serve him with our lives. He is the leader and spiritual head of the largest order on the continent and wise beyond your reckoning.”
I shook my head. Despite the distance from Bunard, Hradian’s arrogance, even on behalf of another, could have been Duke Orlan’s or any other of the countless nobles who despised me. “And yet, for all his wisdom, the Archbishop surprised you,” I said, “when he forced you to put children in the vanguard.”
Hradian gave me an unblinking stare. “Lord Dura, you are commanded to accompany me to Cynestol this very hour.”
Chapter 11
Hradian had hardly blinked when I insisted he leave a man behind to take care of Modrie, but he’d been more than serious about the need for haste. Any and all attempts on our part to pack, or even eat, were forestalled, and we were on horseback riding from Edring as dusk approached. On our left, the sun slipped below the horizon, and the light died with a flare of red against the clouds, like an omen of blood.
I shuddered. When had I become a superstitious man?
Hradian barked an order, and the leading wedge of the cosp lit torches to guide us. Hooves thundered on the cobblestones as we closed the distance to Cynestol. I tried once to pry additional information from the lieutenant, but the pace and the noise precluded any conversation. Bolt looked as serious as I’d ever seen him.
“How far are we from the city?” I asked him.
“Another two hours from the cathedral—there is no way we can keep this pace.”
“I didn’t think we were that far away.”
He grimaced, the expression lurid in the light of the torches. “We’re not, but Cynestol spreads widely and it never sleeps. Even at night much of the city is crowded and progress slows to almost a halt.”
An hour and a half later, or something close to it, we crested a hill and stopped, brought to a halt by a wall of sound. Cynestol filled a broad bowl in the landscape, surrounded by a rim of low hills. Within that depression thousands of iron bells peeled their grief, and the entire city of Cynestol vibrated with the multitoned cry of anguish and loss.
Hradian reined in, all expression sliding from him until he might have been cast from stone. With the sharp bark of an order, the entire group of cosp dismounted and, as one, knelt to face the east, each man or woman’s hand rising to inscribe the intersecting arcs on their forehead. It wasn’t until I stepped closer that I heard him reciting the antidon for the dead in a low voice.
Bolt stepped in beside me, his customary stoicism in place, barely. “Tell me,” I said. “What kind of woman was Chora?”
There was no movement that might have betrayed his thoughts. “The last time I saw her, she was hardly more than a girl, but she had a talent for self and space that made her a beautiful dancer even before Sylvest died and she inherited the gift of kings.” He paused as the sound of bells gathered and broke, washing over us. “Better if it had been the prince, or even the Archbishop,” he said softly.
But not softly enough. Hradian wheeled, his expression stricken and his hand on his sword, but my guard only shrugged. “No insult intended, Lieutenant. Archbishop Vyne is an old man and no fool. He would long since have arranged for his successor, but if Queen Chora has died without passing her gift to Prince Maenelic, then the largest kingdom on the continent is about to descend into chaos.” He stopped to look at me. “The timing here feels more than a little coincidental.”
“That’s quite a piece of understatement, even for you,” I said. “If Sevin were taking wagers for the watch, I’d give him whatever odds he wanted that Chora died right as Ealdor came to me in Aeldu.”
“Or even when we decided to set out for the church,” Gael said.
When we descended the hill, the first thing we saw was a full garrison of soldiers camped on the road illuminated by watch fires that circled away from us into the night. Hradian cursed under his breath as he rode forward to speak to the men guarding the makeshift gate.
During the next quarter of an hour we watched him argue with the grizzled commander, his posture changing depending on whether he attempted to order, bargain, or plead his way past the barricade. When he rode back to us his face wore a mixture of relief and frustration, or maybe the dancing shadows on his expression from the flickering torchlight just made it seem that way.
“What news, Lieutenant?” I asked.
He took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose. “The city is under curfew. No one in or out except by daylight and after a thorough search.”
“They’re trying to catch the killer,” I said. I caught Hradian’s eye. “That order didn’t come from the Archbishop, did it.”
Hradian gave me another one of those looks as if he suspected me
