Dust and Light (25 page)

I covered the babe with one of Constance’s sheets, sat beside him, and mourned the short, cruel life he’d known. And then I waited. Bastien had not given me a signal to tell them no more.

Clouds and night devoured the light. Rain pattered on the flat roof outside the smaller window and dribbled into the cistern. A profoundly melancholy night—how could it be other after spending the day with dead children?—but so very blessed to hear and smell the rain. The splat of each droplet etched shapes in my fallow mind—curved roof tiles, stone walls, leafless shrubberies, the carved aingerous at the end of the drainpipes spewing the collected rivulets onto the road from their long noses or pouted lips.

The contrast with the Tower cellar seemed to grant me an intense sensual clarity. The scent of damp wood evoked the shutters; that of hard-packed mud bespoke the cart road. The must of old stone conjured the flat roof and its round cistern.

Which took me back to my visions. Several more times during the day,
I had lost focus. Twice the world had simply plunged into darkness as if I’d dropped off asleep. But once . . . Great gods, these happenings were so strange. I had been kneeling atop a bald, rocky prominence, the highest point of the very hills I had dreamed before. The same urgency had driven me there. Yet I could see naught but beauty. Steep-angled light of afternoon gold sculpted a greening land of hills and vales that jutted into the embrace of Ocean like a great hand, its five fingers spread, a slender wrist joining it to a dark continent to the south. Scarps of white stone ridged the five fingers of the land like exposed bone. The smell of the sea borne on soft wind gusts, the warmth of the angled light bathing my face, the certainty of the stone under my knees had insisted on the truth of my existence in that place.

At each lapse I had pulled myself back, dizzy and disoriented, until I could grasp the stream of magic and purpose. Astonishing that I’d produced aught but scribbling.

What else could I call them but visions? Yet I had been shivering from the cooling wind when I blinked away this second experience of land and Ocean, and even now, sitting in my studio, I caught the lingering scent of the sea as if it were imprinted on my clothes.

Perhaps my bent for history had deposited some impression of the hairless youth’s history in my senses, like the lingering taste of garlic. For certain, the landscape had been nothing from my own experience.

If the cause was magic—perhaps some strange effect from the joining of my bents—it wasn’t my conscious work of the morning that had done it. The vision that had interrupted my use of the bent in the Tower had borne the same sensual clarity. The cold wind had raked my naked body as I walked through dry grass under the stars and met a Dané. A Dané who spoke with Morgan’s odd archaic lilt . . .
thee
and
thou
 . . . an untouchable memory that could summon the fire in me as if she stood at my side. The incident in the blizzard, though not triggered by magic working, was very like. Intensely vivid, and the two limned in blue had spoken in the same patois.

What could such odd lapses signify? A mind’s weakness, perhaps, affirming what the curators said of me. How could they be truth? Morgan was no mythic creature, but as real and human as anyone I’d ever known. Ah, gods, her mind had been bright and keen as a blade; her body as lush as the summers of my childhood; her skin rose-brown, kissed with sunlight, not marked in blue or silver fire. Was she so deeply embedded in my spirit that visions took on her voice?

The pattering rain began to puddle on the floor. Reluctantly, I closed the shutters. As I fastened the latch, torchlight flickered behind me.

“So, you’ve declared an end to the day’s work?” Bastien clambered over the fallen door, torch in hand, bringing the real world with him.

I nodded.

“Presumptuous of you.”

My empty hands spread helplessly. My truer retort—asking how he expected me to draw in the dark—remained unspoken. He wasn’t stupid. Like a mosquito, he just enjoyed pricking at people. Depleted by work and memory, curiosity and wonderment, I doubted a lion’s bite could rouse me to anger just now.

“From now on, ring twice when you’re done and they’ll carry the last corpus away without bringing another. Where are the drawings? And speak aloud, for the gods’ sake.”

But before I could say, he spotted the row of pages spread on the floor well away from the windows. He crossed the room with the speed of a spider toward warm blood.

“Never expected seven portraits on your first day back.” He squatted beside the row.

“The sleep helped, and the food.” I rang the bell twice and moved to face the wall. “It was an interesting selection. Sad. So many children.”

“Children of ordinaries die all the time. From many causes.” He snatched up one drawing, his nose almost touching it. “Horns of the goat, I knew it!”

I couldn’t see which portrait drew his exclamation, but it told me what had become obvious as the day wore on. He had suspected what some of the portraits would show.

Footsteps on the stair held me silent. “So, he’s done with all, is he?” Constance’s whisper bleated from the doorway. “About ’is supper: I’ve naught extra but a bit of olive paste and old bread. Garen says he knows a man gots a cartload of pignuts to sell morrow dawn. I’m sending—”

“Whatever you can spare,” snapped Bastien. “He needs it to keep working. We’ll arrange better for tomorrow. But later. I’ve business here until
ninth hour
. Do as I instructed.”

“Oh, aye. I’ll see to it. Da says locks and hinges will have to come after that if you want ’em today. ’Twar a busy—”

“Yes, yes,
after
is fine.” Bastien sounded as if he might kick her. Once all was quiet again, he sighed deeply. “That woman is the gods’ retribution for every sin I ever contemplated, much less every one I committed.”

“She’s the foundation of Necropolis Caton.”

“Aye. She is. Were it not for her, the dead would lie unwashed and unburied and the rest of us fly into giblets. Garibald bellows, but even he does the squawking goose’s bidding.”

I joined him alongside the row of portraits. “A plank to spread them on would be useful,” I said. “With props under it, if we’re to see a rainy spring.”

“Mmm.” His thick finger tapped the boy on the horse. “Witness said a black charger went wild and trampled this boy in the
pocardon
one night. None knew him. None saw where the horse went or if anyone was even riding it. ’Twas not four days after our lily girl was found in the hirudo.”

I rubbed one aching shoulder, ready to vouch for the witness’s story. The wretched sensations of battering and crushing had not yet faded, despite the four other portraits in between.

“That bald head had me curious. The older girl was found in a midden up in the Council District. Bek suspects poison. Her mouth and gullet were blistered unlike any disease he knows. A half month since, we had a thaw week, and this babe bobbed up from a pond inside the walls of Palinur’s royal palace. The gardener who found it is a Karish believer. He brought it here, as he knew we would bury it proper.”

“Infants die all the time,” I said, echoing his caution.

“For certain, and more than a few with a rag stuffed in its gullet. But this . . .” He pulled the infant’s portrait close. “Bek spends all his time thinking about dead folk and studying their nastiest parts. He believes these five young ones died within a few days of each other. And within a few days of the lily girl.”

“But that could happen for many reasons.”

“Mmm. But you’ve shown me the lily girl and these three others with possible royal connections, all between age three and twelve, all dead within a few days.” He dropped his voice as if a gossipy ghost might be listening behind the shutters. “None of ’em were starved like these others. None showed signs of sickness. The lily girl and the horse boy had their hair color hidden, one was an infant with no hair to hide, and that midden happened to have a vat of tar thrown in, so we don’t know what color was the bed girl’s hair. And what is the one thing everyone knows of Perryn, even those have never come near royalty?”

“He’s fair.”

“Aye. The Prince of Ardra has his mother’s hair—fine curling hair the color of gold thread. I do believe someone’s been cleaning up
all
Perryn’s
leavings. Certain there’s someone inside his own household in on it. Who else would know where to find them all?”

“Killing children,” I said. “What place has that in honorable warfare?” The callous brutality appalled me. So brazen. So contemptuous of the law and everything righteous. “If Bayard had won the war, I might see it. But with the matter settled, it makes no sense at all.”

“Naught’s so new about killing children or holding ’em hostage,” said Bastien. “But you’ve likely not heard much news of late. The war’s not over, as we thought might be. Perryn’s not won his kingdom as yet. Seems his elder brother took offense at the outcome of their battle in the north and used the break in the weather to chase him westward. That fight didn’t go so well, and Perryn had to dig in for the winter. Now we’ve a thaw, Perryn’s racing homeward, hoping to make a stand here in Palinur. He’ll need support from every noble, cleric, and pureblood he can rally.”

I’d certainly given no thought to politics. “Such weakness isn’t promising.”

“Aye,” he said. “There’s alehouse talk of a brokered succession. Even if Bayard drums Perryn into the ground, he wouldn’t like anyone proposing we find some other offshoot of Eodward’s bloodline to raise up instead of him. Perryn seems to have left enough spawn about the countryside that every noble in Navronne could have his own little kinglet or queenlet. Perryn’s rightful get could be next for the knife.”

Cold, deliberate murder. Bastien needed to know what I could tell.

“I don’t have a name, but the murderer’s a nobleman. And he’s big and hairy and wears polished black boots.” I gave him the tale of my venture to Arrosa’s Temple.

“Blood and thunder!” He slapped his hands on the bier when I reached the conclusion. “It fits. It would have to be someone close to Perryn, likely suborned by one of the brother princes. Curious that he delivered the child to the temple in the first place. But documents, you say . . . if he signed documents and I could get hold of them . . . You’ll be worth the trouble yet, pureblood.”

His optimism eluded me. Certainly it would be gratifying to identify a man who would slaughter children. But spring would melt Bastien’s ice barrow. By the time he could learn the murderer’s name, no one would be able to identify the small bodies. Purebloods were considered unimpeachable witnesses in matters of their magic, but a Ciceron would be believed sooner than a madman. And from whom would Bastien collect his pay?

Weariness weighted arms and eyelids. “If I’m to do decent work tomorrow, I should sleep. Perhaps you could tell Constance that, with all sincere gratitude, I’ve no need of her food tonight.”

Bastien wrenched his attention from the portrait. “Nay, we’ve business yet tonight!”

My spirit groaned. “As you wish, naturally, but my magic—”

“Won’t require any. In fact”—he jumped up and strode over to the shelf and took up the leather mask and spool of silk cord—“as we’re keeping to the rules, we needs must do this.”

Though my spirit recoiled, I dipped my head. The universe had not changed since morning.

I dropped to my knees. “Easier to get it on this way. I’m not allowed to do it myself.”

He stared for a moment, then shook his head. “You are the damnedest.”

Once he’d latched the mask in place, he detached the mouth strap and tossed it back onto the shelf. “Won’t need this. You’ve permission. But the rest . . .”

Silkbindings—inexpert, but effective. Shackles. Gods! Trust came hard, but I allowed him to do as he was required. I would give no one an excuse to bury my gift.

He snatched the torch from the bracket and led me down the stair and through the colonnade behind the prometheum. Our destination was the Hallow Ground.

The grave markers seemed to have doubled in number and grown larger since I’d last been here, but it was only that the snow had shrunk to less than half its former depth. What were we were doing here in the frigid night? Ice pellets shot through the lamplight. At least it had stopped raining.

We halted deep in the center of the burial ground. And then we waited, unspeaking.

As the city bells rang ninth hour of the evening, Constance, in her finest cloud goddess costume, glided through the colonnade, guiding a hooded figure wearing a wine-colored cloak—a pureblood cloak.

My heart froze. An investigator already? Bastien likely didn’t want him to see the unlocked shutters and—

The visitor’s hood fell backward, erasing every thought from my head.

“Oh, Luka, what have they done to you?” Juli raced across the snow and flung her arms around me.

“J
uli! How—? I was sure— They said none—”

Juli ducked under my bound hands and into the loop of my arms.

“Gods,
serena
. Holy, mighty gods. Forgive me . . . wasn’t there . . . couldn’t get inside . . .” Joy, confusion, apology, grief tore at my wits.

Bending my elbows, I used my forearms to lift her up and crush her to my breast. Her hair was fragrant against my cheek. “Where have you been?”

The need to know and to tell her everything I wanted before she evaporated shoved words out of me so fast no human could possibly respond.

“The others—Soflet, Giaco, Maia. They aren’t—?” One miracle might imply more.

“Put me down. And let me loose.” She wriggled and squirmed. “Luka, I can’t breathe, and I can’t understand your mumbling.”

Even without the strap, the cursed mask prevented my mouth opening more than a finger’s breadth. I let her go, but only a little.

“Oh,
ancieno
. You look awful. Your poor hair. Filthy clothes. And this dreadful thing . . .” Her finger brushed the hard leather band across my brow. “How can you bear it? I’ve been so afraid for you. That night . . . I heard what those horrid people were saying.”

“Truly I’m all right. It’s just believing that you and the others . . . Holy Mother. Lord of Fire.” My knees jellied. The resolve that had held me together all day was crumbling rapidly.

“Here, sit down and I’ll tell you everything.” She ducked out of my
embrace and dragged me in the direction of a mourners’ bench just emerged from the snow. I hobbled after, chains chinking and dragging snow into my boots. I was not dreaming. Was not.

“He said I could stay only a little time.” She dropped her voice and jerked her head toward Bastien, who strolled along the path to the colonnade as if on a courtier’s meander. “He is dreadfully stubborn. I knew you would yell at me for speaking to him, but I had to find out what became of you.”

Even the astonishment of Juli naming someone more stubborn than herself had to yield to the deeper truth. “You came
here
on your own? Approached
Bastien
?”

“How else was I to find you? It had been a whole day already. I was afraid to go to the Registry, which sounds stupid, I know—though it seems not, now he’s told me—but I knew your master wasn’t going to be happy if you’d not come in to work.” Behind her mask, she widened her eye. “He wasn’t. He growled and yelled at me. Only when I threatened to conjure his manhood into a turnip did he stop. Once he heard me out, he started bellowing again. Said he’d see his contract fulfilled, if it took him until the last day of the world. It certainly seemed that long, as it was only last night he sent me the message that he’d gotten you back. I think he’s the one who’s craz—”

I pressed my bundled hands to her mouth. “Mind your tongue,
serena
.” Joy and gratitude threatened to burst my skin, but I could not shake off caution.

Bastien had sat himself on a grave marker not so far away, elbows propped on his knees as if he were contemplating the particular arrangement of the memorials.

“My master hears everything we say. As is necessary just now. The Registry’s given us strict rules, and I would very much prefer not to go back to the Tower. But just to see you . . . by the Mother’s heart . . .” I touched my naked cheek to her hair again, just to make sure. “The curators told me they’d found a girl dead in the ruins.”

Juli wilted like a blooming rose doused with hot water. “Kila stayed late to help me sort my clothes for the move. I’d promised to give her things that she could use or sell—for her pay. As it was so late, I ordered her to stay and sleep in my room.” The lamplight glittered in my sister’s dark eyes, awash with tears that did not fall. “I killed her, Luka.”

“No, no. You did not. Not at all. But six—” They’d said six and we had only the five servants. “Ah,
serena
, not your friend.”

“He was so brave, Luka. And Kila, too. If the warning had only come a bit earlier! Egan brought it inside, asking if the message was from you, as he had been waiting for you so long and needed to get to his work. I didn’t even know he was waiting. When we read it, he insisted on getting me away immediately and promised to see the others safe. Kila refused to come, but went off to wake Soflet and the others.”

“Warning message?”

“It said we had to get out immediately or die like our kinsmen. No signature, no seal; I believed it came from you. I was so frightened. We could already smell the smoke. I tried a water spell . . . three of them. Usually I can draw water from anywhere, but they didn’t work.” Her voice rose . . . tremulous. “
Nothing
worked. I felt like an ordinary. What use is magic if you can’t use it when you’re afraid?”

“Not your fault,” I murmured, touching my forehead to hers. “Not your fault.”

“I ran away.”

Heartsick at Egan’s and Kila’s sacrifice, at the terrible deaths, at Juli’s anguish, I wanted to crush my sister to my heart until we were inseparable, to draw her tears away with a touch of magic and ease the terrible burden of this new grief, to cry out sorrow and loss and injustice like some ordinary mourner come to the necropolis. But my silk-bound hands could neither touch her nor work magic. All I could offer was words. “You did right. It’s all you could do.”

“Egan left me at the Vintner’s Well.” She pulled away, but not too far, keeping my wrist in her grasp. “I waited an aeon, but no one came. I’d brought Kila’s black cloak so she’d have it when she got out. I pulled it over mine and went back. The fire was everywhere already. Some in the mob said you had set the fire yourself and likely meant to fire the whole district. I knew that was lies. But the talk spread through the crowd and people were so very angry. Coward that I was, I hid and kept silent, even when you came. I saw
Eqastré
Pasquinale enspell you and send for the Registry. Then the Registry servitors bound you and took you away. Oh, Luka, knowing you believed me dead near drove me mad! If I’d spoken up . . .”

“No! You did exactly right. They
would
have taken you.”

“But why? Why would they believe that rabble instead of you? No one could ever believe you mad. Me, yes. But never you.”

“I don’t know why.” I’d never had a chance to tell her about the rumors Gilles had spoken of. “But none of this was about truth—not from the day they terminated my contract. I
will
find out, but it can’t be yet. For now I must obey the rules of my confinement. But what of you? Where did you sleep that night and all these months?”

“I went to Egan’s mam. I told her of how brave he was and how good a friend. I was in an awful state. I’d no idea what to do. She insisted I stay until I could think clearly. I’m able to pay for my keep, of course.”

Her brow lifted and her eye glared, which mystified me until I understood what she was telling me. She had saved my stipend purse.

“As is proper.” I kissed her hair, in awe at her forethought and relieved that she had some resources at least.

“You mustn’t worry about me.” She laid her hand on my exposed cheek. “Trust me,
ancieno
. Now I know you’re here, I can get on with things. It’s actually quite useful being dead. I’m free to try things and to learn and no one yells if I make mistakes. Ulfina, Egan’s mam, is so sad, and yet so brave and strong just like he was. She’s taught me so many things. Did you know . . . ?”

She prattled of rushlights and cooking, of buying and selling in the
pocardon
. But certain words stuck, scalding like hot tar.
Being dead
. Of course the Registry believed Juli dead. And they wouldn’t go looking for her unless someone caught sight of her. But, gods, the risk.

“. . . and now you’re out of the Tower and safe here, perhaps I can discover what this is about. I could sneak into the Tower by the back door Capatronn showed you—”

“No! You mustn’t! Let me think.” It was all I could do not to snare her in my arms again.

“Oh, be easy. I’m just teasing. I’ll stay with Ulfina like a good girl until you’re able to find us new lodgings. Trust me!” But the grin playing around her mouth told me otherwise.

She had to understand that my freedom was impossible now and unlikely in any near future. In a kingdom engulfed in war and famine, she needed pureblood protection. And if she stayed dead, she would have to remain dead forever, unable to use her magic, lest it be detected and traced to her. If the Registry discovered she had knowingly maintained such a
deception even for a few months, they would name her
recondeur
—with all its dread consequences. No marriage. No children. Unrestricted contracts. And that was the
best
we could hope. Yet neither would I have her dragged to the Tower cellar. Not ever. Neither dread nor denial could obscure the only way to protect her. A risky, terrible, painful way.

“Juliana de Remeni-Masson, listen carefully to me.” I used my severest tone, even through the mask. “I am your eldest brother, your Head of Family in all save age and Registry blessing.”

“Luka, what—?”

“Bend your knee before me and acknowledge my claim.” No softness or lack of clarity must give her ideas of escaping my command.

All the bright animation of hope erased, she nodded. With dignity, wariness, and a smothered fire that near broke me, she left my side and sank to one knee in the snow. She did not bow her head, though. “I acknowledge your claim. Of course I—”

“On this day, you are the only hope of our bloodlines, and your first duty is to our family and the gifts we are charged to bring to the world. Yes?”

She shrugged.

“Answer me! Confess it!”

“Yes.”

“You must give yourself to the Registry. Tonight. Straightaway as you leave here.”

“What? But you just said—”

“I know what I said. But now I speak with the authority of my position that you have just acknowledged. You will tell them a story: that you were so stricken with horror and grief to see someone you believed was me set fire to our house that you collapsed and lost all memory. Say nothing of the warning message, but rather that someone in the crowd dragged you away, thinking to have a pureblood at her beck, and you’ve only now come to your senses and escaped. Make them believe, Juli. I know you can. Your life, your future, the lives of the children you are destined to bring into this world depend on it. My life may depend on it, as well. Repudiate me. Tell them how cruel a brother I was, always scolding you. Tell them of my erratic behavior since Pontia, of my devastating grief and my everlasting fury at our grandsire’s chastisement for my disgrace. Tell them that I have no bent worth the air I breathe. Think of every grievance you’ve ever had with me. Tell them whatever—and I mean
whatever
—it
takes to convince them that you have not spoken with me, that you despise me, that you want nothing to do with me, that you believe I am a madman who could burn down his own house and kill—”

“I could never speak such lies!”

“Yes, you can. You must.
Think
, Juli. If you stay away, you are dead
forever
, your magic forsworn. You are already a
recondeur
at
best
. And they
will
find you and execute anyone who has sheltered or helped you—Egan’s mam, Bastien, everyone. That is the law. Believe me, if you want to help me discover the truth of all this, you must live safely among purebloods, develop your magic, learn what is in you to learn, but always, always with care. If I had the skill, I would erase your memory of these months and plant this story in your head, even if it meant you would despise me forever. I will
not
have you dead. And I will not have them make you a slave or a prisoner or whatever these villains have in mind. But I must let them have you.”

She sank back on her heels, gaping at me as if I were indeed a madman.

“Swear to me, Juli. On everything we deem holy. On our beloved dead. There is no other way.” I believed that with a certainty I could apply to nothing else in the world.

Her eyes widened. “Luka . . .”

“Swear it.”

Without shifting her furious, frightened gaze from mine, she swore. “On our name and blood, on our holy gifts, on the lines of magic unbroken, I vow all that my Head of Family has asked of me. Witness my oath, great Deunor, Lord of Fire and Magic. Witness my truth, mighty Erdru, Lord of Vines. Witness, too, that I will not rest until the need for this posturing is undone.”

Her speaking was bitter, her body rigid. If someone told me I had worked the very magic I had wished for, I would have believed it.

She broke off her glare and rose, cold and pale as one of the stone grave markers. “To whom shall I surrender,
ancieno
?”

And this was near the hardest part of all. “Pons. I think it must be her. She will believe the worst you say of me. But she is hard and very intelligent. Convince her, and you convince them all.”

I wanted to beg her to be careful, to suggest she get herself filthy and torn before going to the Tower, to remind her that she was everything in the world to me and that only the lack of any alternative could force me to send her into such danger. But her back was already turned.

“Whip him if you need, Coroner Bastien, and keep him shackled,” she said as she rejoined my master, “for he is assuredly a raving lunatic. You and your woman must forget me.”

“We shall forget everything we’ve seen or heard,
Doma
Remeni. I warrant my life on it.”

He exchanged a few insistent words with Constance. Juli did not look back as she waited. Only a moment and the two women vanished into the vaulted passage.

Bastien near yanked me from the bench. “Mother save me, Remeni, you are the hardest bastard I ever hope to meet.”

He left me silk bound and shackled that night, the chain linked to a new bolt in the floor. And he installed the mouth strap so I could speak no words of magic. Perhaps he thought I would regret my decision and run or set his prometheum afire. Yet it was not second thoughts that kept me awake until dawn, nor was it Garibald’s hammers and chisels installing locks and hinges, but only the sick certainty that I should have frightened Juli more.