The Fall of the Dagger (The Forsaken Lands) (39 page)

“Oh.” She stared at him. “I’m so sorry, Saker. I – I can’t imagine what that must be like for you.”

He gave a short bark of humourless laughter. “No one can. I’m not sure I understand it myself. Anyway, right now I think we have to worry about Perie. We all know he hasn’t been himself lately.”

“He’ll be at that oak tree. I’ll look for him.”

He nodded and glanced at Sorrel. “We want to leave for Vavala as soon as possible so that we can take a ship for Ardrone from there. We’re anxious to get back to Piper.”

“Right. I’ll be with you soon. Let me see about Perie first.”

She gulped down the last of the food, buckled on her sword and headed out into the woods. A ten-minute walk brought her to the oak, but there was no one there. She stood for a moment, frowning, as she glanced around. The forest was still, the oak leaves shining in the sun, leaves yellowing, some drifting lazily to the ground like golden boats floating on an invisible sea. As she walked up to the trunk, she saw clothes piled up at its foot.

His clothing.

Cold shafted her with the expectation of grief. Kneeling, she fingered the discarded tunic, so neatly folded. And there, on top of the pile, the red-tongued shoes that had belonged to his father. She laid a hand on them, tears blurring her vision.

Thoughts came to be considered and discarded, the lawyer in her assessing, rejecting, finally accepting that she would never fully understand, and that understanding didn’t matter. She stood and laid her palms flat to the oak, then dipped her forehead to lean it against the bark. Overwhelmed, she stood there for a long, long while.

“Gerelda?”

She took a deep breath, released her hold on the tree, and turned
to face Saker where he stood at the edge of the canopy. “I was worried…” he said.

The tears came in earnest as she walked towards him. “He’s gone, Saker.”

“There are birds in the tree,” he said. “They are… contented. In the way birds are in a shrine-oak.”

She nodded. “Yes. I think – I think it has just gained an unseen guardian.”

His eyes widened. Surprise first, then shock as his gaze fell on the clothes, and finally wonderment. “By all the acorns in the oak…” The words were hardly more than an awed whisper. “It’s become a shrine-oak?”

She reached out and took his hand. “He truly has gone where we cannot follow.”

He lifted his gaze to the canopy of the oak. The leaves whispered in the breeze, soft, gentle sounds, as if to say all was well with the world.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

She wasn’t sure where home was, except that she knew now it had to be where Saker was too.

S
aker, Gerelda, Ardhi and Sorrel paid their respects to the Pontifect immediately on their return to Vavala by barge from the north. Fritillary was back in her workroom, as busy as ever, making use of a three-wheeled bath chair and an assistant cleric.

“A small price to pay,” she said, dismissing the subject of her inability to walk. Saker thought he saw frustration in the pinched lines around her mouth, but he knew better than to offer her sympathy.

She already had the main news of the battle, as Deremer had sent a messenger a day earlier, but they filled her in on some of the details before adjourning to Proctor House to eat, bathe and sleep.

The next day, after lunch, a messenger came for Saker to tell him the Pontifect wanted to see him again.

“She’s going to ask you to work for her,” Gerelda said.

“Probably.”

“Will you?”

He shook his head. “I’ll keep my promise to Ryce. I’ll be his Prime.”

“Have you told Ardhi and Sorrel yet?”

“I told them I might take the post. I won’t tell Sorrel why I have to, though. It would just be another burden she’d be happier not knowing.” He shrugged. “I’d better go.”

He found Fritillary in the Pontifect’s workroom. Somehow she’d managed to resurrect the room as it’d been before Fox had taken over the palace. He could find no trace of Valerian anywhere. Still, there was something missing: Barden’s touch. Fritillary’s desk was a mess of papers that her secretary would never have tolerated.

“Barden knew where everything was and which should be dealt with first,” she said, waving a fistful of documents in exasperation. “I still don’t know what I’ll do without him!”

“I’m sure there are clerics with the same intelligence and orderly mind he had. Think of it this way: there must have been a time when he was young and new to the job.”

“Before my day, that was,” she said, irritably. “He was already ancient when I was elected Pontifect.” Her expression softened. “I loved that old man. Anyway, that’s not why I wanted you to come in today. I wanted to ask you again about Peregrine. Gerelda appears to think he’s become an unseen guardian for a new shrine-oak. Do you have any opinion on that?”

“Well, the oak is definitely a shrine-oak, but it has no shrine keeper as yet.”

“The unseen guardian will choose its own. But Peregrine – tell me what you know.”

“He was deeply troubled, driven by his need to rid the world of evil men. He became the instrument of Va-faith, or of the Shenat Ways. It made him a killer. He was
used
, in fact. That never sat well with me, or with Gerelda. Necessary perhaps, but neither of us liked the idea of what was… I don’t know. Judicial execution?”

“Are you saying becoming an unseen guardian was his reward for being an instrument of our faith?”

“A reward?” He thought about that. “Perhaps. Or an absolution. Gerelda thinks Peregrine felt he was living on borrowed time. He ought to have died when his father did, but an unseen guardian saved him, for a purpose. That purpose has been fulfilled.”

“Traditional thinking says the unseen guardians of new shrine-oaks are from ancient oaks that died. That there will never be more guardians than we already have.”

“I know.” He smiled slightly. “What is certain is that oak now has an unseen guardian and Gerelda said she heard the rustle of its leaves whisper words to her: ‘I’ll miss you, Gerelda’ – and she’s the least imaginative person I know.”

“There has never been any indication that unseen guardians were once human.”

“One manifested to me as a woman. And Perie told Gerelda that the unseen guardian who gave him his witchery was a young man.” He tilted his head at her in enquiry. “What was your experience?”

“I – I turned to a shrine in a time of great despair. I had done
something wrong and there were… consequences. I had been thinking of not continuing with my Va-faith studies. I was praying, my hand on the oak, when I suddenly knew what I had to do in order to live with the guilt. I had to take my final vows and serve others as a cleric. That was the moment I received my witchery. I didn’t know what it was for a few days.” She shrugged. “Some things are not ours to understand. Let’s get to one of the other reasons I wanted to see you today. It’s about the twins.”

“We still have two pieces of feather. Piper is wearing her necklet. What about the prince-regal?”

“Regala Mathilda wrote and has assured me he will wear it. You’ve told me your feathers are the fallback in case the necklets fail. I think you’re wrong. You have one on you, in that pendant you wear?”

“Yes.”

“I want to hold it, to check my theory.”

He had no idea what she meant, but he extracted it from the bambu and placed it in her palm. She gazed down at it, touched it with a finger, and then handed it back. “I think I’m right. I touched the feather circlet too.
That
necklet was designed to stop the development of sorcery. To weaken the power.”

“Yes, that’s what we were told.”

She held up the tiny piece of feather. “This is far more potent and versatile. You weren’t, however, told what it was for?”

“No.”

“But you’ve used one to bring Sorrel back from certain death, and another as part of our successful attack on Valerian, a third gave you the connection to your sea eagle, and a fourth took you to a hidden shrine, is that correct?”

He nodded.

“All powerful and producing very different outcomes, all of which ended well.”

He nodded again. “But we weren’t told how to activate them.”

“Didn’t seem to matter, did it?”

“No.”

“I am going to insist that you use these as soon as possible, one on each of the twins. My power to sense the truth tells me these are
of far more use than the pretty gold-feather circlets the twins now wear.
Those
will weaken sorcery.
These
have the power to burn the sorcery out of the twins.”

“Can you guarantee they won’t kill them?”

“No one can guarantee that. Their power is nascent because they are so young. Their power is further diminished because they wear the necklets. Now is the time to attack that weak sorcery. I am ordering you to do it.”

“You don’t have the authority.”

“You’re still my witan. I want to make something quite clear:
we cannot risk another sorcerer
. We especially cannot risk a Lowmian Regal having that evil inside him. I want your word that you will use these tiny feather pieces as soon as possible.”

“Or else?”

“Don’t make me tell you what I would do. Saker, surely you understand what is at stake?”

For a third time, he nodded. He took the feather from her and placed it back in the bambu.

“Do I have your promise?”

“Yes.”

She waited in silence, regarding him.

He raised his eyes to meet her gaze. “I love Piper. There is nothing I have seen in her that tells me she will grow up to be a sorcerer.”

“That doesn’t mean much. What I want to hear from you is that you would prefer to see her dead than to see her grow up to be one.”

He winced. “Yes,” he whispered finally. “I would.”

“Good. Now there’s one more thing. Sir Herelt Deremer has arrived from the battlefield. He wants to meet you, and I would like you to speak to him.”

“I’m not much interested in talking to him.”

“He owes you an apology, if nothing else.”

He waved a hand in a gesture of surrender. “All right. Later. I have something more I want to talk to you about, too—”

“See Herelt first. He’s in the library. Come back here afterwards.”

He blinked, surprised at the abruptness of her tone, but shrugged and left the room to do as she asked.

He found the Lowmian nobleman standing at the window looking out. “Fritillary tells me you have something to say to me?”

Deremer turned, but stayed by the window. “Yes, Thank you for coming.”

“I can’t imagine what you have to say, unless it’s that you’re sorry for the death of the eagle.”

Deremer blinked, taken aback. It had obviously not occurred to the man that the death of a bird could have any meaning. “No. I wanted to apologise for trying to kill you in Dortgren. And give you an explanation.”

“I’m not sure I care enough to hear it. Va-faith believes in redemptive behaviour, and you certainly have done much to bring an end to the Fox family and their sorcery. I’m willing to leave the matter there. After all, I’m alive.”
Pity I can’t say the same for all the twin babies and Shanny Ide and Prelate Loach and all those others at the Seminary of Advanced Studies in Ustgrind
…

“Spoken like a witan, indeed.”

He sighed inwardly. Actually, he thought he’d sounded more like a pompous rattler. A Prime should be more forgiving. “There is one thing I’m curious about. How did you know who I was that night? I was calling myself by another name, it was dark, and I didn’t even know we’d met before. Yet you called me Rampion.”

“We hadn’t met before, no. But your face was familiar to me from your Grundorp University days, when I took a discreet interest in your career. I knew who you were the moment I clapped eyes on you again in that village. Of course, one of my spies had already told me you were in Lowmeer, working with the Seminary of Advanced Studies, so seeing you there in the midst of a Horned Plague outbreak was hardly a shock.”

He frowned, puzzled. “From my university days? I know you were one of the university’s benefactors, but why the sweet cankers would you remember my face? Why me?”

“I knew your mother at Oakwood University, back when I was a student there, along with Fritillary Reedling and Valerian Fox.”

He knew what he was going to hear then, with ice-cold clarity. The one thing that had never crossed his mind. He wanted to turn and leave the room and never return. Instead he picked up a plain
wooden chair from the corner and sat on it back to front, so that he had something to grip in front of him to stop his hands trembling. “Go on,” he said and marvelled at his calm.

“The Dire Sweepers liked to keep an eye on all members of the Fox family. Valerian’s father, Harrier Fox, was still alive then. At the time, we didn’t know as much as we should have, but the Foxes had always been suspect. So they sent me, a young student from Grundorp, to keep a watch on Valerian when he enrolled at Oakwood. I met Fritillary there, right at the beginning of what was to be a brilliant career, but not yet possessing her witchery. She and Fox loathed each other. I don’t know how or why that started, but I suspect she had the edge on him academically and he didn’t like that. Especially as she was a woman, and someone from an undistinguished farming family. A nobody.”

He hesitated then, as if he didn’t quite know how to proceed with his tale. In spite of his antipathy towards the man, Saker was intrigued.

“I always did like strong women,” Deremer said at last. “Our family is famous for women of stature and accomplishment. My mother was strong-minded, proud of her intelligence and learning, and Fritillary was like that too. And of course she had more than her fair share of ambition. I admired that. We became lovers.”

Saker couldn’t stop the astonishment registering on his face.

Fritillary and Deremer? A Pontifect and the head of the Dire Sweepers. Fobbing damn.
When he realised his mouth was hanging open, he quickly shut it.

“You’re surprised?” Deremer pulled up a chair, although he sat on it the right way around. He tapped his long thin fingers on his knees. “We were just young people, living with the intensity of the young. We told each other it meant nothing more than the satisfaction of a need, and a way of saving money. Sharing a room was cheaper, and my father kept me on a short leash financially. He thought it built character.” He snorted. “Character! A Deremer!”

Saker said nothing and maintained a blank expression.

“Iris Sedge worked in the tavern. No, let’s call it what it was. A student alehouse. Not nearly as respectable as a tavern. She was vivacious, pretty, bright, but not at all academic or ambitious like Fritillary.” He paused, as if he was remembering. “Exact opposite,
really. I’m not sure why she and Fritillary became so friendly, except that everyone liked Iris. Her Shenat parents – farmers from the hills – had wanted her to marry a clodhopping fellow called Robin Rampion. Instead, she’d run away to Oakwood. She was a free spirit, true Shenat in many ways.”

He paused again, and stilled the drumming of his fingers. “Do you want to hear this? Fritillary asked me to tell you anything you want to know about your parents. But it’s your choice, not mine. All I can say is this: you’ll get what I think is the truth. I owe you that much.”

“I want to know everything that you know.” He wasn’t sure he would believe it all, but he wanted to hear it.

“Fritillary said you would. Don’t blame me if it’s not palatable.” He waited, but Saker said nothing, so he continued. “Most of the alehouse girls earned extra money by bedding the students. Iris didn’t. She wasn’t like that, not at all. She had a knack of charming everyone, and when she refused them they not only accepted the rejection, they loved her for it, even as they kept trying. So there we were: Fritillary and me, lovers but not in love. And Iris, tantalising Iris, flirting with everyone, and apparently unobtainable. We might have gone on like that until we went our separate ways – except we were all so young and foolish and everything spun out of control. To make the story short: Iris and I fell in love.”

He sighed. “It was clay-brained. I wasn’t free to marry whom I pleased! I was a Deremer, born to be a Dire Sweeper, and we could only marry people who understood what we were doing, and agreed with it. People brought up to do the unthinkable. To kill babies. We married within the Sweeper families. Always. And there I was, completely blind-sided by a deep and abiding love. I knew then that I’d never love anyone else.”

Saker sat motionless, his certainty of what was coming like a stone in his gut, weighing him down. He wanted to leave the room, to say,
No! I don’t want to hear this! Not now, not ever!
Instead he remained unmoving, his hands gripping the back of the chair.