He held her as she slept, and she did not move in the circle of his arms. In the night there was another light snowfall that he knew would erase all tracks of people or things around the tower. In fact it did that, as well as the tracks of the wolves that had carried every fragment of their feast far away to other, scattered places and the tracks of the vultures and crows, the weasels, raccoons, skunks, and other small carnivores that had scavenged the site when the wolves had gone.
When Xulai woke, late the following day, she said Jenger had bribed Derris, killed him, and taken her. She could not remember what had happened after Jenger had left her in the cell. There had been something in it about deer, or changing reality, but she couldn’t remember what it was. Abasio, looking deep into her eyes, saw something there he had not seen in her before. He had seen that same look, however, in the eyes of people and speaking beasts who had survived terrible battles and did not want to remember what had happened.
He concluded that whatever had happened to Jenger had been done by someone else. Perhaps Xulai had seen it happen or heard it happen. People did not get that expression in their eyes if they had been horrified only in their imagination.
Solo Winger received a message from Abasio. On the outside, it said, “Deliver to the librarian, Elder Brother Wordswell, no one else.” On the inside—Solo had become an expert at unsealing messages and resealing them—it said, “Derris was bribed by Jenger, a servant of the Duchess of Altamont, to help kidnap Xulai. Previously Jenger conspired with Bear to kidnap Xulai, but her reluctance to move into a house near the back wall delayed those plans and Jenger grew impatient. Xulai overheard some of this conspiracy but does not know Bear’s true intentions in the matter. Jenger has disappeared. Xulai has been rescued. The bird-sign of the house is the Old Dark House of Altamont. The bird-sign of the vulture is the sign of the Vulture Tower west of the abbey. These places may well be linked through old mine shafts. The bird keeper told me these were signs used only by the abbot. I question this. Whose idea was it to house the Tingawan party near the back wall, which is unguarded, where they might be easy prey?”
Solo Winger carefully resealed the message, tucked it into a pocket, and impatiently waited until nightfall. Wordswell was known to work in the library at night. He did it, Winger thought, in order to be uninterrupted, and he was confirmed in that opinion by the old man’s brief expression of annoyance when he was interrupted.
Winger handed over the note and moved away to let Elder Brother Wordswell read it. He did not leave; there might be an answer, after all.
“I suppose you read this,” said Wordswell in a dry voice.
“Why, Elder Brother . . . ,” Winger began in offended tones.
“Don’t give me that pigeon shit, Solomon Winger. You read everything that comes through that tower.”
“Sometimes thins ak-see-dentully come unsealed, like.”
“The man asks a good question. Whose idea was it?”
“A message from Old Dark House come while them ladies from Woldsgard wuz on their way here, them an that Bear an t’other fellas. A message went back ’n’ forth, two, mebbe three times, in fack.”
“From whom?”
“Who d’y’think from whom brought ’em to me? Who brings everthin’? Who sees everthin’ afore the abbot gets a look? Who takes everthin’ the abbot sends and reduz it? Hm?”
“Did they start fixing up that house before or after those messages?”
“Can’t say’s I took notice. I guess sumbuddy’d have ter ast the crew adoin’ it.”
“I suppose you have no idea how the person who sent this message managed to get an abbey pigeon?”
“Well, and you think I wunn’t know where’s my own birds? Course I do! He ast for three. I guv him three. He said he wannud to let the lady know how he’uz doin’. He said the old one, but I figured it wuz the young one he reely had on his mind. She’s a nice girl, and I figure she’d care ’bout how he was doin’.”
“Misuse of abbey property . . . ,” mused the librarian.
“Misuse, pfff. Dang good use, I figger,” said Brother Winger. “Don’ I hear you tellin’ people alla time now-lidge is pow’r? Well, now you got some now-lidge you dint have afore. And it’s bin goin on for some years.”
“I suppose you have copies?”
“Man c’n s’pose anythin’, ’fhe wants.”
Wordswell actually smiled. “Come back and see me at midnight, Brother Winger.”
Wordswell was an elder brother but not the eldest. He held in his hands what others of the elders, male and female, would consider an accusation of the abbot’s complicity in crimes of kidnapping and murder—that is, if one did not know that the prior handled virtually all the abbot’s messages and appointments. The elders did know. They would not consider the messages proof of the abbot’s complicity; they were as likely as the librarian to suspect someone else. What proof might there be? Two cages of pigeons in the abbey bird loft with certain signs. The allegation that these signs were of Altamont and of an old mining tower could be proven. A party could be sent to the old mining towers to look for evidence of that same sign; it might be found somewhere, on a bird cage, for example. Wordswell himself had authority
