The Master of Heathcrest Hall (20 page)

Consumed by these gloomy thoughts, Eldyn rounded a corner in the graveyard wall—and not twenty feet before him a pair of redcrests appeared through a small gate. They wore gold sashes over the blue coats: emblems that were worn only by members of the royal guard.

Two more men, also wearing gold sashes, stepped through the gate. Eldyn knew he couldn’t hesitate. Though it was against every instinct to race
toward
a group of soldiers, he did so, gathering the shadows around him as he went. It was broad daylight, but given the shade cast by several old hawthorn trees, it was enough that the soldiers did not immediately see him.

By the time they did notice him there, a woman wearing a gown of dove-gray silk beaded with pearls was already stepping through the gate not a dozen paces away. Eldyn heard angry voices and felt strong hands grip his arms, but he ignored them. Instead he kept his gaze fixed on the princess, noting every detail of her face, her hair, her dress.

His boot heels scraped against the cobbles as he was unceremoniously dragged away, but still he did not blink or turn his gaze, instead affixing every aspect of the scene in his mind.

At last he was flung down to the street in the mouth of a filthy alleyway. He scraped his knuckles as he tumbled to the cobbles. The soldiers shouted at him, saying he would be arrested and taken to Barrowgate if he ever attempted to approach Her Majesty again. Eldyn hardly heard them or felt the burning in his hands. He shut his eyes, envisioning what he had seen, fixing it in his mind. As soon as the soldiers left him, he leaped to his feet and was racing across the Old City, back to the theater.

Eldyn dashed up the stairs to his room above the theater, not stopping to speak to any of the other players who greeted him. Once in his room he shut the door and went to the table. Quickly yet carefully, he painted an engraving plate with a thin coating of impression rosin. Then he gripped the plate in both hands and shut his eyes, envisioning the shimmer of each tiny pearl, the glint of the rings upon her fingers, and the way the little lace coif had laid upon her gold hair as lightly as a spiderweb upon a marigold.
With all the force of his will, he directed these thoughts upon the engraving plate.

And saw green.

It was done in an instant. Without even looking at the plate, he put it in the mordant bath, counting the time aloud so that it would be etched neither a moment too short nor too long. Once it was finished, he took out the plate, washed it in water, and wiped it clean. Only then did he let himself examine it in the sunlight that fell through the window, and his heart gave a leap, for he was certain the impression was good.

Knowing time was of great importance, he raced down the stairs and departed the theater as swiftly as he had come, much to the bemusement of Riethe and Mouse and the others. He went directly to the offices of
The Fox
, having decided previously that was where he would attempt to sell his work. But once there he discovered, to his dismay, that the editor had just purchased an impression of the princess at Duskfellow’s.

Evidently one of the other illusionists had managed to get a look at Her Majesty as well, and the paper had bought it. Cursing his poor timing, Eldyn went back out onto the street and tried to decide where to go next. The offices of both
The Comet
and
The Messenger
were in Gauldren’s Heights, which was all the way on the other side of the Old City. If another illusionist had gotten a scene with the princess, Eldyn couldn’t hope to beat him there. That left only
The Swift Arrow
.

Eldyn was reluctant to go to that broadsheet after what Perren had said. But their office was near to that of
The Fox
, and with no other choice, Eldyn tucked the engraving plate into his coat and hurried to Coronet Street.

His fears quickly proved unfounded. Either Perren had not made good on his threat to speak ill of Eldyn, or business trumped all other concerns. Once Eldyn told the publisher what he had, the man was eager to see it. He took the engraving plate from Eldyn and, as he had that time before, examined it with a magnifying lens.

He pored over the plate for a long time—so long that Eldyn
began to dread that there was something amiss with it. At last the man set it down, then opened a box and drew out five gold regals, which he set on the counter and pushed toward Eldyn.

Five regals! That was nearly twice what he had been paid before. Eldyn was hardly able to take up the coins for the way his hands trembled.

“You will bring me any further impressions you make that are of similar quality,” the publisher had said, not speaking it as a question.

Eldyn had managed some reply, then had departed the office. And if it hadn’t been for the heavy jingle of gold in his pocket, he hardly would have believed what had just happened. Later that lumenal, he had been absolutely worthless at rehearsal. When night fell, he barely slept a wink, and he had gladly risen in the cold, dark middle of the long umbral, anxious to see his work as soon as it was printed.

Now here it was before him.

The impression had turned out better than he had hoped. Everything he had seen was there in ink, along with some things he must have seen but had not really been sensible to at the time. For it was not simply an expression of sorrow on her face, he thought now, but a kind of resolution as well; and the way the hawthorn branch bowed into view from above made it seem almost as if it were bending toward her, as if to comfort her in its embrace. In all, it made him feel not just sympathy for the subject of the scene, but also a curiosity as to what she was going to do next.

Eldyn picked up his cup and took another drink of his coffee. He wondered if Perren would see the impression in
The Swift Arrow
, and if he would know it for Eldyn’s work. If so, it could not make him think any more kindly of Eldyn, given that it had appeared in the very broadsheet to which Perren sold his own work.

Well, what was done could not be undone. Besides, he had just as much right to sell impressions to
The Swift Arrow
as Perren did, and he hoped this one would not be the last. It would be good to earn some extra coin to replenish his savings.

Except what was he saving for? Sashie was no longer his responsibility.
As for himself, what need did he have for money other than to buy a new coat or a pot of punch? Once he had hoped to earn back the family fortune, and then he had labored to earn enough money to enter the Church. But he had since abandoned both of those notions.

His gaze went back to the broadsheet. Just below the impression of the princess was a large advertisement concerning a venture to the New Lands that was being readied. Seeing this provided a rueful reminder of how he had once given a hundred regals to Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing, thinking he was investing in a trading company, only to discover they were nothing but a pair of swindlers who had absconded with his funds.

This advertisement did not concern a trading company, though. Rather, it described a colony that was to be established on the mainland of the new continent. That this was a perilous venture, there could be no doubt, given what had happened at Marlstown around the time Eldyn was born. All of the colonists had vanished, and their fate had never been learned.

Yet the plantations on Aratuga and the other islands were exceedingly profitable, producing great quantities of sugar and rum, so it was only a matter of time before an attempt to found another colony on the continent was made. And if the advertisement was to be believed, this venture was to be far larger and better equipped than the Marlstown expedition.

Despite the awful stories about Marlstown, Eldyn had no doubt that many people would readily join this new venture. When things were so dreary and desperate in Altania, leaving its shores and traveling to the New Lands was a compelling notion. The threat of unknown adversities posed little deterrence when there were so many familiar troubles here at home. Eldyn could almost picture himself standing at the prow of a ship, a fresh wind upon his face as he glimpsed a green line on the horizon for the first time.

Yet that was just as much a fancy as winning back the Garritt family fortune or entering the Church. Those who went to the New Lands weren’t likely to win a fortune, but they were sure to
find burdensome labor as they attempted to carve a homestead from desolate landscapes ruled by cruel elements. Eldyn was no more a farmer or colonist than he was a magnate or priest. He was an illusionist now—one of the Siltheri, the Concealed Ones. That was all.

And when, after years of performing upon the stage, he had used up too much of his light, so that to craft any more illusions could only afflict him with the mordoth, the Gray Wasting, then what would he do? He would certainly have no children to look after him. So if he had no savings to live upon then, how would he live at all?

There was only one answer to that question. He would simply have to make certain he
did
have sufficient savings when that time came. Which meant he had better get to selling more impressions now. He finished his coffee, took up his broadsheet, and rose from the table.

“Hello, friend, is that space free?” someone said behind him. “It seems everything in Altania is scarce these days, including places to sit.”

Eldyn turned to tell the other man that the space at the table was indeed available, but then felt a sudden astonishment at the sight of the tall, gangly young man before him.

“Orris Jaimsley!” he exclaimed.

The other’s eyes went wide for a moment, then a bent grin appeared upon his homely face. “Great Gods, Eldyn Garritt! I never imagined I’d run into you in a place like this. I thought you had given up habituating coffeehouses. I can’t recall the last time we saw you at Mrs. Haddon’s.”

“I suppose I did fall out of the habit,” Eldyn confessed.

“No doubt there was too much talk of revolution for your taste,” Jaimsley said with a laugh. “You always were the proper, upstanding member of society.”

This caused Eldyn to grin himself. Back when he had attended St. Berndyn’s College, he had frequently gone to Mrs. Haddon’s coffeehouse with his fellow students. There, Curren Talinger had often spoken hotly against the government, and Dalby Warrett
would attempt to douse the flames of his ire even as Jaimsley fanned them.

Not that Jaimsley had ever really seemed to share Talinger’s opinions regarding the wickedness of the government; rather, Jaimsley had always been the prankish sort, and at St. Berndyn’s he had ever liked to incite others to commit mischief as he watched in glee.

Of course, while Talinger had often spoken of revolt, he had never done anything more rebellious than tear down a copy of the Rules of Citizenship. All the while, unknown to the others, Eldyn had been engaged in business with true rebels, carrying secret missives for supporters of Huntley Morden—work in which he had engaged to repay a debt to the highwayman Westen Darendal. Eldyn wondered if Jaimsley would still think him to be proper and upstanding if he knew the truth of what Eldyn had been doing back then, or if he had an idea what Eldyn did for a living now.

“I just came in to get a cup against the cold,” Eldyn said. “But how are you doing? And what of Talinger and Warrett? I went by Mrs. Haddon’s some months ago to see if I might find you there, but the place was closed by order of the Gray Conclave.”

Jaimsley’s grin vanished. “Ill news, that. Though I can’t say any of us were surprised, once we learned the truth of it.”

“You mean you know why her establishment was closed?”

“You hadn’t heard, then? But I suppose that’s to be expected—no one wanted to act as if they knew what had been going on, for fear they might be considered an accomplice.”

Eldyn frowned. “An accomplice to what?”

Just then another man got up from the table, clearing a second spot. Jaimsley took Eldyn’s arm, pulling him down, and the two of them sat.

“There was more to good old Mrs. Haddon than any of us knew,” Jaimsley said in a low voice, leaning his head close to Eldyn’s. “You see, it wasn’t only barrels of coffee beans that came into her shop. She was receiving kegs of black powder that were smuggled out of the royal army’s own stores by Morden sympathizers. When the Gray Conclave finally learned what she was up to, they
discovered heaps of the stuff right in the basement of her shop—enough to blow up an entire fort, or so I hear.”

Eldyn felt the hair on his arms raise up. To think, all the while they were sitting there drinking coffee, there was a large store of gunpowder just beneath them! How many times had a bit of burning tobacco fallen from someone’s pipe to the floorboards? He shuddered to even consider it.

“Was it these same men Mrs. Haddon was working with who blew up the Cenotaph?”

Half a year ago, a monument commemorating the war that established the rule of the Arringhart kings was blown up, and dozens of people were killed in the tumult.

Jaimsley shook his head. “No, it wasn’t her band of men. They were shipping all the gunpowder to Torland. But the attack on the Cenotaph was made to look like Morden men did it, no doubt in an attempt to turn sentiment against the rebels.”

“Then I wonder who really committed the deed.”

“I can’t say. For my money, I bet it was the same magicians who blew up the Ministry of Printing. I imagine they wanted it to look like rebels had attacked the Ministry as well, but one of them got caught. Good thing there was an illusionist there to get a picture of him, so everyone knew it was magicians behind it, and not Morden men.”

Eldyn could not help feeling a note of pride. By their nature, impressions could not be false—which meant they could reveal the truth of a situation that might otherwise have gone unknown. Perhaps there were other reasons to make impressions than simply gaining some coin.

“But what’s become of Mrs. Haddon?”

Jaimsley’s expression grew uncharacteristically somber. “She’s in Barrowgate now. The men she was working with have already been hung. She’s told the barristers she didn’t know what was inside the kegs she was storing beneath her shop, but I don’t think anyone really believes that. I imagine it’s only a matter of time before she goes to the gallows as well.”