Authors: Carol Berg
“I’ll leave you here,
domé
,” said Orrin, bowing. “His Grace will join you soon.”
“Your guidance has been useful, Hugh de Orrin. One more matter . . .” I pulled three rolled messages from my waist pocket. “Give these to the porter at the west gate to be delivered within the hour. These additional members of my party will arrive this afternoon in answer to a Crown summons. They should be brought here immediately. You can be sure the prince will wish to see them.” Unless he’d had us executed by then.
Orrin accepted the ribbon-tied rolls. “As you command,
Domé
Remeni. I shall return and stand doorward for your guests as soon as I’ve discharged this mission. The grace of the gods be with you on this day.” He hurried off, leaving the heavy door to swing shut behind us on its own.
Clerestory windows cast a soft light on the cavernous space. Bastien, hands on hips, frowned. “What the devil kind of place is this?”
I could not help but grin. No one ever expected what they found beyond the grandiose entry.
“A treasury of igniters for a pureblood historian’s magic,” I murmured as I came up beside him.
The Repository appeared to be more of a castle undercroft than a temple of learning. There were no chambers or passages, but only ranks of columns to hold up the roof. Every quat of the stone floor was crammed with stacked crates and leather trunks, scroll cases, canvas bags, and barrels packed with straw. Shelves were scattered with caskets and tins, rusted tools, and dusty vials filled with everything from buttons to coins to dried beetle husks. It was a panoply of miscellany, a chaos of Navronne’s refuse.
While the Registry Archives held documents, portraits, and magical artifacts from pureblood history, the Royal Repository housed every kind of relic both from Navronne’s history and from times before the kingdom’s founding. My grandsire had brought me here often as a child, allowing me to explore his treasury of pots and scraps. He had taught me how to
interpret their making and glean what they could teach us. Only in Eodward’s reign, he’d told me, had Navronne gained the luxury of studying our own history that we might understand what our past could teach about present and future.
I’d cared naught for such abstractions early on, only for the curiosities and the individual puzzles. But as my bent developed, and I was able to discern connections between battles and bowstrings, castles and trade routes and oranges, I became enraptured with the grand portrait of our kingdom and its people that these bits and pieces could sketch. Only then did I begin to appreciate Eodward’s great-great-grandsire Caedmon and his monumental work of uniting three disparate peoples: the fierce warlords of mountainous Evanore with their mighty fortresses and rugged caves in the south; the wily traders, merchants, and shipbuilders of the river country, Morian of the north; and those who tended the sweet, fertile hills of golden Ardra, the farmers, artists, students, and philosophers nurtured by the land’s beauty. Caedmon had made them one kingdom, far stronger than the sum of their individual might.
It gave me heart to believe Prince Perryn valued what my grandsire had tried to teach him. Enough, at least, that he had tamed Orrin’s suspicions and disregarded my inconvenient timing. And he had agreed to my suggestion that we meet in the same venue as his original invitation. All could change easily, of course. If he arrived with his wife and a crowd of court ladies, he likely wouldn’t thank us for bringing up such delicate matters as his bastards, debauched children, and his murderous duc. And then, of course, if we presented our case and Perryn refused to believe . . . That trouble made all others seem small.
“Wait here,” I said to Bastien. “I’m off to hunt my grandsire’s missing secrets.” I’d told him of Capatronn’s last investigation and my surmise that the white tree of Xancheira might be related to the Path of the White Hand. He was not stupid. He had recognized right away that my secret dealings with Demetreo and the Cicerons had spurred such an insight.
Pluvius believed I had taken something from the Registry Archives, something important and dangerous, having to do with Capatronn’s Xancheiran investigation. I hadn’t. But my vision in the Tower cellar had shown my grandsire kneeling before a small painted wooden chest, examining artifacts marked with Xancheira’s tree. If my grandsire had wanted to hide something from the Registry, he might well have taken it home to
Pontia, in which case it had burned with everything else. But he might very well have moved it here, protected by preservation spells. No pureblood had the authority to search these premises. I had to look.
There was an order of sorts to the chaos. Not markers or labels; my grandsire had disdained those as ephemeral—misplaced or out of date as soon as they were installed. Instead he had grouped things by logical association. Moriangi artifacts here, Ardran ones there, relics of Caedmon’s era distinct from those of the years since Eodward’s coming. Maps, charts, and notes were not stored in one place but left with objects from the sites they described.
Unfortunately, Xancheira fit nowhere. We had no solid artifacts . . . or so I’d thought. Fortunately my grandsire
had
set aside a corner for unsortable oddments. Blood heating with excitement, I headed for the northeast corner of the building, scrambling between stacks of Moriangi shields and a dusty worktable piled with bows and arrows. I bypassed the larger trunks and casks. No time to search them. Capatronn’s favorite place to store mysteries was a knee-high crate with a lid of woven branches—itself a curiosity he’d found before I was born.
No sooner had I spied the crate under a dented breastplate than a sharp hiss from Bastien shifted the dusty air. I couldn’t stop, though. I unhitched the worn leather loop that held the crate closed.
The bronze doors boomed and torchlight flared from the entry as I set the breastplate aside and raised the square of woven leather and sticks. And there it was. Amid some rusted knives and swords, a bronze cauldron, and a rolled tapestry sat the small rectangular chest, straight out of my vision. Patches of red and yellow paint still shone bright on the dry wood.
The chest reeked of enchantment, which encouraged my belief in its importance. I snapped the first layer—my grandsire’s private locking charm—with a familiar twist of magic. But inside the lid lurked a blanket of deterrent spells that churned my gut and blurred my vision. I’d no time to devise a counter; thus I fumbled blindly through the contents: small boxes, a leather pouch, some shards of stone, a rusted dagger. What I wanted was one of the small stitched journals where he described his findings and their provenance, his theories and conclusions. I searched for enchantments rather than shape, for his journal would bear the thickest layer of protection, especially if he were hiding secrets. Something not at all journal-shaped kept stinging my fingers.
“His Grace Perryn, Duc of Ardra, Prince of Navronne!” A herald’s cry. I had to go.
Still no journal. I needed something to take with me. I might never get back here. Again I encountered the enchantment that pierced my hand and eyes like shards of heated glass. The protected object felt like a small roll of canvas or linen wound on a wood spindle. It must have
some
importance. I stuffed it inside my doublet and replaced the woven branch lid.
Bastien had ducked behind a man-high barrel of oil lamps. I hurried past, then paused to calm my breathing when I reached the last row of columns before the entry.
Three men and a woman stood with their backs to the gray daylight streaming through the double doors as footmen set torches in nearby brackets. Though I had not seen Perryn since we were boys, I could have picked him out of a much larger party. It was not his grand apparel—the deep, rich blues of satin and brocade, the trailing sleeves of intricate lace, the thick ermine ruff, or the diamond pectoral glittering in the torchlight. His companions wore equally elaborate garb. Rather it was the golden hair so like spun silk, the milk-fair complexion that spoke of pure Ardran lineage, and the long, lithe body that would be graceful whether dancing, riding, climbing trees, or fighting barbarians. Not so muscular in chest or shoulder as his father, and less ruddy in the cheek, despite months on campaign. But with such a noble presence, clear eye, and fair, open visage, he was most definitely Eodward’s son. My hopes soared.
“My lord prince,” I said. “You are most gracious to receive me with so little notice. Your summons was relayed to me only recently, and I’ve rushed here straight from the road, lest I miss this opportunity.”
“Remeni . . . Lucian!” He abandoned his party and hurried forward, his hand extended in welcome. “Indeed, it is our pleasure! What a fortuitous day! I was most distraught when I heard you were out of the city . . . ill, I was told. But you’re better now?” He was near bouncing in his jeweled slippers.
“Very much better, Your Grace. It was but a mild upset.”
I would not kiss his ring. Instead I touched my fingertips to forehead and inclined my back just enough to acknowledge his rank, while leaving no impression of subservience.
He gave no appearance of pique, but cupped his extended hand and clapped it to his breast in exuberant drama. “Good! Good! The message
from the curators made your illness sound quite dire. For a month or more I’d been determined to meet you here, but gave up all hope.”
This was all so strange, as if we were longtime friends instead of two men who had crossed paths two or three times in our very different childhoods.
“I could not gather a great party to come.” He leaned close, as if to whisper a great secret, but did not modulate his voice in the least. Perhaps his high spirits had to do with spirits—he reeked of wine. “When I told them I was meeting the grandson of my father’s pureblood historian in a dusty warehouse, almost every member of my household found some more urgent task to be about. So these are now my most stalwart friends.” He beckoned them over. “Hierarch Eligius of the Karish cathedral . . .”
I squinted into the light. The broader of the two men, gowned in red silk, would be the Hierarch of Ardra—the highest-ranking Karish clergyman in Navronne. The red cap atop his frizzled brown hair and his gold pendant shaped like a sunburst confirmed it. His presence was surprising; I’d no idea the prince dabbled in the new religion.
Eligius and I exchanged nods of respect.
“. . . and one of my most intrepid field commanders, Fallon de Tremayne . . .”
Tremayne!
But
Fallon
, not Laurent. Young, beardless, and slight of stature, his hair dark but trimmed close to his skull, he was not the man I’d seen on the temple stair. He’d be one of the Duc de Tremayne’s formidable sons, I guessed, for despite his youth and slender build, the planes of his face were chiseled granite and his well-fitted black satin bespoke steel sinews. When he rose from a crisp bow, his gray gaze met mine straight on. Very bold indeed. A scarce-healed slash on his face spoke of recent tenure on the battlefields.
The formidable son intrigued me. Bastien had issued the murderous duc a summons to ensure his presence. But the son might be useful as well. Only two days since Bastien’s runner, Pleury, had spoken to the palace wet nurse who told tales of the Duc de Tremayne’s second wife. It happened that the young wife had borne the much older duc a girl child some nine years since. Nine years. Perhaps Fleure was his daughter’s friend.
“. . . and the Ducessa de Spano, the merriest lady in any court.”
The woman was slight and fair, a perfection of form and face, exquisitely gowned in white satin and dripping with rubies. Though her years
could not yet have numbered twenty, her sapphire gaze was locked on Perryn like that of a lynx on a roe deer.
“I’ve learnt to trust your entertainments, lord prince.” Her silk mantle floated behind her as she twined ivory arms about his waist. “None can match your jongleurs and masques. I’ve not danced so much in a year as these few days since your return. How could I stay behind and miss such glorious amusement as a treasure hunt?”
A
treasure hun
t? An entertainment for his mistress? Had no one told Perryn that his starving city was in chaos and his enemies on his doorstep?
“Fickle woman, now you’ve spoilt the surprise!” The prince drew his finger across the ducessa’s parted lips in a most intimate manner. Then he nibbled at her ear, stopping only when she giggled and pushed his hand away.
“Dearest Your Grace,” she said, squeezing closer, “we must be about our fun with the pureblood before my lord husband and your other knights grow restive in your hall.”
“My lord, it is ever my pleasure to fulfill your wishes,” I said, uneasy, “but Palinur’s streets are not safe today.” I wasn’t even sure what kind of treasures they’d wish to hunt.
Perryn’s hand waved to encompass the repository. “Well, of course, it is the treasures of Navronne we seek, else why would I summon Vincente’s favored grandson?”
Keeping confusion beneath my mask, I fumbled onward.
“I understood you wished to reminisce about my grandsire, lord prince.” Gods, I sounded insufferably priggish. “Of course, one could say his life was something of a treasure hunt.”
“Exactly so!” said the prince, dragging his attentions away from the woman. “That’s what spurred me to fetch you here. I was always jealous of you, you know. When we were boys.”
“Jealous? A son of history’s noblest king?” I almost laughed aloud at such a ridiculous assertion. But a certain bite in Perryn’s speech registered danger quick enough to turn my course. “Indeed, lord, I doubt a pureblood youth forever bound to his rules, studies, and contracts could hold any advantage over a young Prince of Navronne. Both were chosen by the gods for their roles in life.”
“Yes, yes, ’tis only in one matter.” He sniggered and waved a limp hand, dismissing my serious reply with a ripple of lace. “But it’s time to set it right. My father forced me to spend interminable hours in this dreary house of dust and rust with Vincente, who preached at me endlessly of battles and lawgiving and naked savages who lived in Navronne before the gods were born. I felt quite abused, because he said that when
you
came here, he set you to seek Navronne’s most valuable treasures buried amidst all this rubbish. ‘None can find them so well as my clever Lucian,’ he told me. Indeed that must be true, as my own pureblood and I came here not a year ago and found little beyond a few emerald chips and some bent medals. So I decided that
you
must show me where these treasures might be.”
He spread his arms wide as if to embrace the entire Repository.
“You seek valuables . . . like gems or gold?” My faith in Eodward’s blood dissipated like frost in sunlight.
“Maintaining a kingdom is very expensive,” he said, sniffing the ducessa’s hair and fingering the rubies dangling round her neck. “And this damnable war empties my coffers as quickly as this lady here empties my bowls of oranges.”
“Lord prince, I regret to tell you—”
“Do
not
say this is holy pureblood business or that somehow the valuables in this repository belong to you or the Registry!”
As Perryn’s tone sharpened, young Tremayne stepped forward, alert.
“Certainly not, lord,” I said. “Everything here belongs to Navronne’s righteous king. It’s only . . .”
If I told him the truth—that when my grandsire spoke of treasures, he meant these very rusty bits Perryn so disdained—besotted pique could ruin any chance of justice for the dead children. I had to twist the truth into Perryn’s expectations.
“My grandsire was a most excellent student of history, lord, but no judge of worldly value. I recognized that only as I grew older and realized what men with experience of the world consider precious. The ‘treasures’
he sent me to find were a jade game piece or an ancient wax tablet—things no practical man would value. I’m thinking your own noble father recognized this. He incorporated any cache of gold or excellent gems into the Royal
Treasury
in the same hour my grandsire revealed them. But if it pleases you, we could seek out the best of what is left—surely a few pieces.”
Though his exuberance was damped, the prince agreed. “Use your best skills. Convince me not to have all this burnt.”
Bastien had said he would step out to begin the inquest when the time seemed right. So why didn’t he? What reason to wait?
I knew why, of course. Because our three witnesses would not arrive for an hour yet. We had allowed time in our plan to accommodate Perryn’s wishes.
“Certainly, lord prince.”
I buried my disappointment, and for most of an hour sought out what salable objects I could recall. Many were missing. Perryn’s pureblood must have found the ten jeweled daggers of a Moriangi prince, and the goldwork jewelry, goddess figures, cups, and fibulae from gold-rich Evanore. I hoped something would please him before our witnesses arrived.
Hierarch Eligius, his puffy face sagging like overwarm cheese, trailed after us, sniffing frequently—whether at the dust or the poor display, I didn’t know. Young Tremayne didn’t seem at all interested. He wandered off on his own, shuffling items on shelves, poking idly into boxes and peering into crates and barrels. The ducessa, however, twittered like a canary, especially when I found a silver comb set with pearls, and a necklace of rare moonstones from the western shores.
The lady’s delight should have cheered Perryn a little, expressed with such bold intimacies as it was. But he grumbled at the paltry haul and dispatched the ducessa to have wine brought in. It was curious he’d brought no servants.
Fortunately, the Repository was quite as I remembered it. No Royal Historian had been appointed after my grandsire left the post. The rise of the Harrowers and the worsening weather in the last years of his reign had likely distracted Eodward from naming a replacement.
From a buried leather trunk filled with King Eodward’s documents, I pulled a Cartamandua map of Navronne’s western coast. Besides its superb illumination, which made it a work of art in itself, the spells worked into a Cartamandua map could keep a traveler’s road inerrant. Some said such
maps could take its user to places no common traveler could find—holy places, places of legend. As my finger traced its inked borders, exquisite magic teased my senses. I hated giving it over.
“What’s that?” Perryn peered over my shoulder.
“Your father commissioned this in the first decade of his reign,” I said, pointing to the date and the words
Eodward Regne
scribed in the map’s cartouche.
Perryn beckoned young Tremayne—Fallon—who wore a leather satchel hung over his shoulder. “See what Lucian’s found in this collection of my father’s things. Cartamandua maps fetch a fine price. Keep this with my lady’s baubles.”
The taciturn Fallon stuffed the map into his bag and wandered off again. How wasteful to have a seasoned veteran in his prime serving as a footman.
We moved on from Eodward’s era to Caedmon’s.
From a crate of tins and boxes, I drew a handful of gold coins struck with a man’s noble likeness. My grandsire had believed the face Caedmon’s own—probably the only likeness of him in existence—which made the coins far more valuable than the weight of gold in them.
Delighted to see gold of any amount, Perryn again summoned Fallon and his sack.
My fingers slipped two coins back into the crate as I handed them over. I could not allow such a treasure to vanish entire.
“Have we searched enough, my stalwart?” said Perryn, once all was stowed away.
Fallon met the Prince’s gaze and nodded. “I serve your pleasure, Your Grace.”
“And your opinion, Excellency Eligius?”
“As long as we are finished here by the holy hour of Vespers, I am content, lord.” The hierarch’s words burbled up from the depth of his wide body.
“Well, perhaps a little more hunting, then, Lucian.” Perryn’s spirits had shot upward again. “We cannot let the Lady de Spano return to find us flown. The wine she brings shall fortify us!”
Perryn was not at all interested in the sonnivar, the booming signal horn from Evanore’s mountains, its length twice the height of a man. “Barbarians’ trash,” he called it, though the intricate silver inlay had been
worked over generations of craftsmen. “If those decorations were gold I’d have them melted out of it.”
“Lord!” Fallon’s bellow whipped us around. His wanderings had taken him back to the trunk where we’d found the Cartamandua map. “See what lies here.”
Perryn hurried over, the hierarch and I on his heels. Scrolls, bound pages, and loose sheets of parchment were scattered outside the leather trunk. Atop the remaining contents was a scroll the length of a man’s forearm. The vellum was the finest that could be had in Navronne. Three leather straps bound it shut, each fixed with a heavy seal.
“What do you make of it, Lucian?” Perryn’s voice throbbed with excitement.
Kneeling beside the case, I examined the wax impressions. “This one is your father’s own seal, lord prince. This the seal of Kemen’s Temple. And the third you will recognize, Excellency Eligius.” The seal of the Hierarch of Ardra. Which meant . . .
Eodward had made three copies of his will. One was to be hidden in some place of safety where it would be revealed at his death. The other two he had entrusted to the two clergymen who had borne witness to his lineage before he took the throne—the High Priest of Kemen Sky Lord, and Eligius’s predecessor as the Hierarch of Ardra. But the two holy men had preceded Eodward in death and no one could find any copies of the will. The lack of a writ naming one of Eodward’s sons as his successor was an ongoing mystery—and a tragedy. It was the cause of the war. Lord of Light, this document could end it.
And yet . . .
How could I have missed a document with unbroken seals as I searched for the Cartamandua map? And my grandsire had never mentioned the will.
My fingers lingered on the scroll. If I invoked my bent while touching it, what might I learn?
I was wholly aware of Fallon standing behind me, the leather satchel over his shoulder, and his lord, one of the partisans in this conflict, kneeling beside me. If they were determined to press a falsehood, my protest would not alter it, and the shades of four children stood at my shoulders, begging for justice. If I discounted them when we had some slim chance of a hearing, what right had I to demand justice for the unnamed thousands? Perryn might yet be the kingdom’s best hope.
“Break the seals, Your Grace,” said Fallon. “You’ve witnesses enough. If this is what it appears . . .”
“I recommend you proceed carefully, lord,” I said. “The chancellor of the realm must be the one to break the seals before witnesses of his own choosing. He can call any of us to testify to its discovery.”
“Wise, Lucian. Very wise.” Perryn’s voice quivered. “Excellency, could I prevail upon you to carry this to Chancellor Ruthais? Tell him the circumstances of its finding and the names of these witnesses. Assure him that I will most certainly not interfere with his duties in the matter. Have four of my lancers escort you. See to that for him, Fallon.”
The hierarch bowed deeply. “With all humility I accept this charge, Your Grace. By holy Iero’s mercy, may it prove the hope of us all.”
“Lucian . . .” Perryn motioned me to take the scroll and give it to Eligius.
Clever of the prince not to touch it. If the chancellor called in a pureblood to examine the thing, that one would certainly look for evidence of Perryn’s hand on it. I could have offered to mark the scroll with an indelible imprint to validate that it was the one pulled from the trunk, but observing Perryn this last hour . . . these odd circumstances . . . his pent eagerness . . . I chose not to be an active collaborator.
Eligius marched out as if he bore the crown jewels themselves, as I supposed he did. Fallon accompanied him as far as the entry and gave orders to the guard commander.
“I had hoped our meeting might lead to a few treasures,” said Perryn, hands clasped to his breast, watching through the open doors as the hierarch’s scarlet pelisse vanished into the fog-draped hedge garden. “Never did I imagine this possibility. Truly the gods are with you, Lucian.”
“May the result be the salvation of Navronne,” I said, meaning it in ways he would likely not approve. Surely somewhere there must live some true inheritor of Caedmon and Eodward’s legacy. Not Bayard—the Smith, they called him, for his hammer hand, capable in battle but lacking education, generosity, moderation, or mercy. Not Osriel, the crippled bastard who lurked in Evanore, the secretive halfblood rumored to steal the souls of the dead. But not this prancing caricature of greatness, either.
As I lamented the desperate courage and bright light I’d seen in Fleure and the horse boy, Fallon pulled the bronze door shut. “Are we finished here, Your Grace?”
Perryn surveyed the cluttered room. “What treasure could we find to match hope?”
I glanced toward the barrel of lamps. Bastien had already read the signs.
“If I may, Your Grace . . .” The coroner stepped from his hiding place and dropped to one knee before the prince, his fist on his breast, conveniently covering his coroner’s pendant.
“Who is this?” demanded Perryn. Fallon darted to the prince’s side, sword drawn, before Bastien’s words had faded. “How did you get in here?”
“I brought him,” I said. “Your Grace and my lord Tremayne, may I introduce Bastien de Caton, a loyal and faithful city official of Palinur? As a measure of his exceptional honor and distinguished stature, the Registry has deemed him worthy to hold a pureblood contract that links him to the noblest bloodlines of our kind. He is, as it happens, my own contracted master.”
“You hid him here . . . why? So he could listen in?” Perryn’s frown deepened.
“Certainly no spy, lord prince. Master Bastien and I have ventured your patience on the chance to present a matter of justice before a prince of the realm. As a holder of the gods’ magic, as well as the grandson of your royal father’s loyal servant, I request you give my master fair hearing, for the matter in question is one that touches on your royal person. Has he your consent to do so?”
“Surely there are better times and venues for matters of justice?” snapped Fallon.