Isaak looked at the registry. “This one is from the Emerald Coasts,” he said. “A private collection.”
He saw the bird flying low to the ground, its golden fe?€ its golathers steaming. It was at Windwir, he realized. Neb opened his mouth and a stream of unintelligible words tumbled out, fragments of scripture jumbled together with glossolalia. He closed his mouth quickly and looked at Jin Li Tam.
She stared at him. “Neb?”
He waited for the tension to leave his throat. Finally, he spoke. “I saw this bird at Windwir.”
Neb watched her eyes narrow and her jawline tighten. “Really?”
He nodded. “I did.”
She nodded, her eyes suddenly far away. “I hope you can fix it,” she said. Then, her eyes returned to the present. “Petronus is calling for you both,” she said. She paused. “Take him that bird. Tell him I said I will speak to him about it later.”
Neb grabbed up his stack of papers. He probably wanted to talk about the council.
The Council of Bishops was just a few weeks away. Many of the gravediggers who had come north with Neb had been put to work building bleachers and crafting the massive tents to contain it. The last birds of invitation were to go out tomorrow.
Neb started toward the manor and the suite of offices they had grown into, then realized he was being rude, and turned to wait for Lady Tam and Isaak.
Isaak held the birdcage in his hands.
Jin Li Tam was staring at it, he realized, and Neb had never seen a more profound look of sadness upon her face.
Petronus
Petronus’s office adjoined the converted guest room that Neb and Isaak worked from. The steward had insisted that he have privacy and wouldn’t hear of him using his living quarters as his work space. Instead, they moved a small desk, some bookshelves and three chairs into a large walk-in closet. The closet even had a small window that opened out on one of the manor’s many gardens. As spring hurried on, Petronus could smell the flowers blooming, though of course he had to stand on his desk to see them.
He looked up the knock on his door. “Come in,” he said.
Neb came in first, and Petronus swore that every time he saw the boy he was taller. His shoulders had broadened and he even had the beginnings of a beard, trimmed.as neatly as a boy could manage. He wore the robes smartly, though he still walked in them as if they weren’t really his, as if he weren’t really a member of the Order. “You called for us, Excellency?”
“Come in and sit down,” Petronus said.
Isaak limped in behind Neb. He carried a small metal bird in a dented cage. The bird twitched and clicked. They both sat in the waiting chairs.
“What do you have there?” Petronus asked.
Isaak put the cage on the desk. “It is a mechanical. Jin Li Tam said she would speak with you about it later.”
Neb spoke up. “I think it was in Windwir when the city fell.”
Petronus studied the bird. It looked familiar. Like something he had seen in someone’s home. “I’ll look forward to Lady Tam’s explanation. Meanwhile…” Petronus reached beneath his desk and pulled out the cloth-wrapped object that had arrived by rider earlier this morning. He’d recognized it immediately, of course. It was from the Papal Offices in the Summer Palace, one of a few hand cannons that had been restored before the Order decided it dishonored kin-clave to make them. He laid it on his desk. “This arrived from the new Overseer, Erlund. It’s what Oriv employed to… well, to end his life.” He unwrapped it and watched Neb’s eyes go wide. “It was used during the days of the Younger Gods, long before the Old World and P’Andro Whym.” He looked from Neb to Isaak. “This is familiar to you?”
Isaak nodded. “It is, Father.” Petronus wasn’t sure why the metal man insisted on the ancient title, but it pleased him. It seemed more humble.
“You recognize it from your time in the library?”
The metal man shook his head. “No, Father. I was not permitted to work with any weaponry apart from the spell.” Exhaust leaked out from his back and his gears whirred. “Oriv used it when Lord Rudolfo and Lady Tam took me from the Summer Papal Palace. He killed one of the Gypsy Scouts with it. But I thought Lord Rudolfo brought it with us.”
“Perhaps this is a different device,” Petronus said. But even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t likely. There had been less than a half dozen of these in the world, and none of them should have ever left the care of the highest officials of the Order or officers of the Gray Guard. When he was Pope, they kept one in his bedchambers, and one in each of his offices. The others had been locked away in vaults deep beneath the library.
Neb looked at it, and Petronus wondered if he noticed the bloodstains in the stock. They’d wiped it down, but it had sat in the blood long enough for it to stain the light wood stock. “It’s fairly simple mechanics,” Petronus said. “A spark ignites a wax-paper envelope of powders. The explosion of these powders propels a projectile-or in this case, a handful of iron slivers. It’s wildly inaccurate beyon?€accurated a handful of sword-lengths.”
But close enough for Oriv’s purpose. If it really had been his purpose. Petronus was suspicious, especially now, with Isaak’s recollection that the weapon had come into Rudolfo’s care once before. He would ask him about it upon his return.
Because if the weapon had been in Rudolfo’s care, it had somehow managed to leave it again. And if that were the case, it was possible that Oriv’s suicide might not have been exactly that. Not that it mattered at this point.
It was clearly an instance of Oriv’s tragic end being in everyone’s best interests. Especially Oriv’s best interests if the note he left behind spoke any the truth at all, that he had collaborated with his cousin for the Desolation of Windwir. His quick exit, mouth on the muzzle of this restored artifact, saved Oriv facing Androfrancine justice.
Petronus would never let him suffer beneath the knives of Rudolfo’s physicians in the way that Sethbert now did on his long journey north. But he’d have still enforced what strong punishment he could, and Oriv’s life would have been forfeit.
He looked at the weapon, then looked to Isaak and Neb. “I want this destroyed,” he said. “It is a secret we can no longer guard properly.”
He watched Neb’s eyes widen. “But Excellency,” he said, “it could be-”
Petronus did not let him finish. “Brother Nebios,” he said in his sternest tone, “it is not to be studied. It is to be destroyed.” He leaned in, feeling the anger rise in his cheeks. “I’ll not let another weapon fall into the wrong hands.”
As soon as he said it, he regretted it. He saw the look of confusion on Neb’s face, then saw understanding dawn as the boy went pale. “Another weapon?”
Petronus said nothing, even when Neb repeated his question. Finally, he covered the weapon back up. “Destroy it,” he said.
Neb nodded. “Yes, Excellency.”
Now Petronus looked to Isaak. “I want you to go over the inventories again. I want to see what war-making magicks and mechanicals still live within the mechoservitor memory scrolls. We will have hard decisions to make in the days ahead about which parts of the light we keep and which we allow to remain aptly extinguished.”
Isaak nodded. “Yes, Father.”
They stood and left. Neb cast another curious glance at Petronus, but he pretended not to notice. He knew the boy would be?€ boy woucurious now. He might even hate him for this.
If not this, Petronus thought, he certainly would hate him for what was coming.
And Petronus would not blame him for that. He hated himself as well.
Jin Li Tam
Jin Li Tam waited until dusk before approaching Petronus’s small office. Neb and Isaak had left for the evening, and the suite of rooms that housed the Androfrancine Order’s operations was quiet and dark except for the light coming from beneath the Pope’s door. The Gypsy Scouts who guarded him announced her arrival and ushered her in.