Lanterns lit a rough, wood-paneled room that smelled of fresh-baked bread and oyster stew. Small groups of men and women sat at the counter or at pine tables placed throughout over worn plank floors. They studied Rudolfo in the doorway and he moved in, mindful of their stares. His men followed him, and he let Jaryk guide them toward an empty table large enough to accommodate the group. Rudolfo approached the bar, his eyes calculating the evening clientele.
He drew a purse from beneath his cloak. Normally, he preferred letters of credit, but in the smaller towns, coins were still very much the custom of the day. He smiled at the large man wiping glasses behind the counter. “Good evening,” he said. He pulled down his hood, feeling the cold water trickle down his back, beneath his cloak and woolen shirt. “I’m looking for food and lodging for me and my men. A common room will suffice if you have one.”
The innkeeper nodded, and his smile widened as Rudolfo tipped a handful of coins onto the granite bar. “I’m certain we can accommodate you,” he said with an accent that hinted of an earlier life on the Delta. “We’ve a peppered oyster stew and fresh sour bread. Cold beer, too. And there’s a bunkroom in the back that will sleep your dozen with ease.”
Rudolfo inclined his head. “We are also looking for someone.” He watched as the man’s eyes narrowed slightly, watched the smile slip just a fraction on his mouth. “An old man. A fisherman named Petros.”
Rudolfo studied the innkeeper, registering the shifting of his eyes and the way the tip of his tongue poked out to wet his lips. He looked away, and Rudolfo smiled at it. Then, he looked back, something harder in his eyes. “You’ll not find anyone of that name here in Caldus Bay.”
Rudolfo raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps he goes under a different name?” Then, his hands moved in the subverbal language of the Entrolusian Delta. I seek the former Pope Petronus, and my need of him is urgent.
The innkeeper scowled, and his voice became a low growl. “If you’re about lodging, food and drink, I can help you. If you’re about finding ghosts, I cannot.”
Rudolfo’s voice lowered to match the innkeeper’s. “I assure you,” he said, “that I bear him no ill will.”
The innkeeper put down the glass and leaned forward. “And I assure you,” he said, “that he is not here.”
Rudolfo offered a tight-lipped smile and pushed the small pile of coins toward him. “Thank you, sir. Food and lodging it is.”
They sat at their table in the corner and talked quietly as the innkeeper’s daughter-a full-sized girl in calico-served them wooden bowls of stew and silver platters of bread. The strong flavor of the oysters put Rudolfo off, but he found it bearable with the bread and the beer to balance the taste.
When they finished, the innkeeper’s portly wife showed them to the back room-a narrow stretch lined with bunk beds, the floor covered with mismatched rugs. There were woolen blankets and patchwork quilts on each and a narrow door that Rudolfo assumed led to an outdoor toilet.
“We lock the inside door when we close. You come and go, you come and go through there.” She pointed to the door set in the back wall. Her voice was cold and firm.
We’re only welcome here for our coin, Rudolfo thought. But he’d seen the weather change on their faces. Until he’d mentioned Petronus, the people here were warm and inviting. But now.
After days in the saddle and on the cold ground, the small bunk would be a welcome change. Rudolfo watched as his men quietly set about checking the room.
He looked to Jaryk. “Set your guard,” he said quietly, “but don’t guard too well. If he’s here, he’ll know we’re looking for him soon enough-if he doesn’t know already.” Rudolfo thought of the wet-clothed boys and imagined them running the rain-slicked streets to bear the innkeeper’s message of Gypsies at the door. Would the old fox come himself?
Their last parting had been strained. Rudolfo, in his rage, had nearly run the codger through for killing Sethbert and for ending two thousand years of Papal Succession by blooding his hands. Later, when he learned that Petronus had deeded the Order’s accounts and holdings to his trust, he’d also found a quickly scribbled note: What I’ve done will serve the light-and you-better than any Pope. P.
Now, months later, he could see Petronus’s reasoning, though it still chewed at him. The world had changed, and the Androfrancines had played a part in that by unearthing Xhum Y’Zir’s spell. And the world continued to change.
More importantly, his world had changed.
I am a father. Pulling off his boots, he stretched out in the narrow bed and folded his arms behind his head. Closing his eyes, he called up the image of his infant son, gray and wheezing in the arms of his flame-haired wife. And here, he sought the whereabouts of Jin’s father, fled the Named Lands now these seven months. Perhaps Petronus could point him toward his quarry. But if he could not, Rudolfo knew that someone could. A dozen iron-clad vessels, tall as temples on the sea, were not easily hidden. He would find Vlad Li Tam and his daughter, Rae Li Tam. He would elicit a cure from them and return to see his boy hale and hearty. He would sing him the “Hymnal of the Wandering Army” as his own father had done, rocking him in his cradle.
Soon, the sounds of his snoring men gentled Rudolfo off to sleep, and he let that restless noise carry him. When the hand came from nowhere to cover his mouth, he started.
Another hand pressed words into the soft flesh of his forearm. You are a long way from your forest, Gypsy Scout. He opened one eye and tried to let it stay unfocused on the dim-lit room. The faintest outline of a hunched figure crouched by him. The fingers pressed again, tapping their words. Why do you seek Pope Petronus?
“There is no need for stealth or silence,” Rudolfo said. “My men know you’re here.”
The room, dim-lit by the light of a full, blue-green moon, lay still. Then, a low whistle rose behind the crouched figure as the First Lieutenant called the men to Second Alarm. They slid from their bunks, and two of them took up positions at the room’s only exits, hands upon their knives and pouches.
“Why do you seek Pope Petronus?” the voice asked again.
Rudolfo smiled. Pope Petronus. The use of the title betrayed this midnight visitor. “I would speak to him personally of this matter. Since when did the Gray Guard go magicked and ghosting? We are not at war.”
The voice was hoarse but impassioned. “Perhaps not with each other, Gypsy, but we are indeed at war. We have been at war since Windwir fell. The events of the past week should make that clear enough.” The magicked Gray Guard coughed, and Rudolfo heard wet rattling deep in his chest.
He sat up. “How long have you been under the magicks?”
Four Gypsy Scouts surrounded the voice now. “It’s unimportant.”
“It clouds your judgment and your lungs. Are you fevered?” No answer. Rudolfo narrowed his eyes, squinting at where the man must have stood. “You need rest. You need time out from under the powders.”
“I need,” the voice said in nearly a growl, “to know why you’ve left your forest and your library to seek Pope Petronus.”
Rudolfo rose from the bed. “You protect him. I respect that.” He stood. “My men protect me. Tell Petronus that Rudolfo, Lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses and General of the Wandering Army seeks audience with him. Beyond that, you’ll have no further explanation of me. It is a private matter for Petronus and me alone.” He whistled and his men fell back; then he leaned closer and lowered his voice. “You will be mad and infirm soon enough if you do not leave off the powders and give your body time to rest.”
“Then I will be mad and infirm. There is no rest in these dark times.” The Gray Guard coughed again. “Are you truly Lord Rudolfo?”