I shook my head, unable to speak while I held the enchantment in my mind. Motioning him to leave the stone and stay close, I stepped through the curtain of fire and onto the Bridge that was my singular inheritance.
CHAPTER 12
Seri
Gerick was my son. Karon’s son. My heart stumbled on the words, yet of their truth I had no doubt. There was no other answer to the puzzle he was.
Had Tomas known it? Surely not. Law and custom had convinced him that my child had to die for the safety of our king and his realm, and Darzid had convinced him that his own knife must do the deed. Not even the knowledge of his own child’s frailty would have persuaded him to spare a sorcerer’s child. Yet, I wondered… Had there been somewhere within my brother a mote of suspicion, a seed of doubt that never made its way to the light of his waking mind, but blossomed into the incessant nightmares and overpowering dread that made him beg me to return to Comigor? Never could he have permitted that seed to grow into the light, for it would have told him that the babe he had murdered was his own. If my fear and grief had left me any tears, I would have wept for Tomas.
On the evening of my discovery, I paced the library, waiting for news. The cabinets that had housed the lead soldiers gaped at me in reproach.
Every servant and soldier of Comigor had been called to the hunt. Troops of guardsmen scoured the Montevial road, inquiring for Darzid or the boy at every private or public house all the way to the capital. Other soldiers and servants followed every road, trail, and footpath that came anywhere near the castle. Giorge and his assistants were querying the tenants. I had done everything it was possible to do. Now I had to wait-until the last man came back and told me he’d found nothing. I knew it would be so. I had no idea of Darzid’s capabilities, but every instinct screamed that they would be enough to hide Gerick from one who had no talent but that of her own prideful imaginings. Where would he take a sorcerer’s child? Dassine had said that Zhid could not cross the Bridge without the complicity of powerful sorcerers in Avonar… but Zhid had crossed the Bridge last summer, and Darzid had been hunting with them. What if Zhid could take Gerick across the Bridge?
I slammed the door of the soldiers’ cabinet so hard one glass pane shattered.
I had dreaded telling Philomena. When I had gone to her room that afternoon, I’d found her sitting up in bed, a maid brushing her hair. Her fingers toyed idly with the gray silk bag in which I’d brought her the lock of Tomas’s hair. All evidence of her dead infant had been stripped from the room. Not the least trace remained of that short, sweet life, and I wondered if anyone had given the little girl a word of farewell as she was laid in the frozen earth. “I’m so sorry about your daughter, Philomena,” I said.
“Gerick has run away, hasn’t he?” she said calmly, not taking her eyes from the gray silk that was wound about her fingers.
I could not understand her composure. “How did you know?”
“The servants say men are searching the house. I’ve not slept as much as everyone thinks.”
“No one has seen him since last evening. I’ve sent-”
“Is he dead?”
“We’ve no reason to believe it. I won’t believe it.” Worse… The stone that settled in my stomach whenever I thought of him grew colder, heavier. Some things were worse than death.
Philomena wrinkled her brow as if trying to decide on white wine or red with dinner. “It’s not as if he was ever very affectionate. He didn’t like playing cards or dice with me, and I never knew what else to do with him. Boys are so beastly. They like fighting and dirt and nasty things.”
“He’s not dead, Philomena. I believe Captain Darzid has taken him. Many people know the captain; he’s easy to identify. Do you know of any place he might take Gerick? Did he ever mention any town or city or person to which he might go?”
“I never listened to Captain Darzid. He was boring.” She looked up, her fair brow in an unaccustomed wrinkle. “Some say you are responsible for these terrible things. Auntie says it. But others whisper that the gods make me pay for my husband’s sin-because he killed your child and helped King Evard burn your husband-and that’s why all of them are taken from me. Do you think that’s true?”
“Don’t ask me to explain the workings of fate. Life is incomprehensible enough without believing we have to pay for someone else’s faults in addition to our own.”
“Ren Wesley says you saved my life.”
“I only fetched the midwife.”
“Did you want me to live so that I would know that all my children are gone-so I would suffer? I don’t understand you at all.” She sighed and tossed the gray silk bag onto the floor. “You’ll come read to me tonight?”
I was ready to scream, Are you mad, stupid woman? My son-mine-has been stolen away by a smooth-tongued villain, and I don’t know where in this god-cursed universe they’ve gone. Yet, what else had I to do but wait? Losing myself in fantasy for an hour might be the very thing to save my reason. I bit my tongue. “I’ll be here at the usual time.”
“Do whatever you need to find him,” she said as I left the room.
“You can be sure I will.” But how and where?
And so I had dispatched more searchers and a message to Evard, and when evening came, I read to Philomena until she fell into the image of peaceful sleep. Since then I had waited, gripping the rose-colored stone that hung around my neck as if sheer force of will might bring it to life and send my plea to Avonar along the paths of its enchantment. Our child had been abandoned at his birth- by his dead father’s idealism and his living mother’s bitterness and self-pity. He had grown up in fear, not understanding what he was. If I had to walk the Bridge myself to fetch help for him, I would do it. Somehow.
Just after dawn a footman came to me in the library, saying that a stable lad was causing trouble. “It’s the cripple. I caught him sneaking through the kitchens and threw him out. Then I caught him again, coming through the windows of the wash house. I told him Giorge would have him flogged, but he insists he has to see the Lady Seri-pardon the liberty, ma’am, but that’s how he put it-as he had information you would want to know. I didn’t want to bother you with it, but Allard said that with the hunt and all-”
“Bring him to the housekeeper’s room.” Any distraction was welcome.
“Yes, my lady. As you say.”
The footman dragged Paulo into the little office next to the kitchen, holding him at arm’s length by the neck of his shirt. “Here he is, my lady. I’ll stay close by.”
“No need.” I closed the door firmly, then laid on the table a packet of ham and bread I’d fetched from the larder. Paulo’s eyes brightened, and he reached for it. But I laid a hand on the packet and said, “First a question, my friend. What’s so urgent that you risked punishment to get in here?”
Paulo crammed his dirty hands in his pockets. “Just wanted to tell you she’s on the way.”
“She?” Paulo never liked to use four words when two would do.
“You know. Sheriff’s friend what saved him and me last summer.”
“Kellea? Kellea is on her way here?”
He nodded and eyed the packet of food under my hand. Paulo had every intention of making up for thirteen lean years living with a drunken grandmother. I pushed the bundle toward him, still not understanding.