“You are always most welcome,” Rudolfo said.
They listened to his pistons clacking as he exited the garden and took the stairs inside.
Jin’s left hand moved quickly, her fingers shifting against the backdrop of her gown and tablecloth as her right hand reached for her napkin. You should dismiss me and speak with Petronus alone, she signed.
Rudolfo inclined his head slightly. “Perhaps our guest and I should take our plum brandy privately tonight?”
She smiled at them both. “I think you both have much to discuss.” As she stood, her hand moved again, now against her hip and leg. Be mindful; this old fox is crafty.
“Not just crafty,” Petronus said, “but also fluent in seventeen different nonverbal Court languages.” He looked at her, his eyes crinkling with his smile. His own hand moved in the same pattern of language. You have found a strategic and strong and beautiful woman, Rudolfo.
Jin Li Tam blushed. “Thank you, Excellency.”
She leaned over Rudolfo briefly, squeezing his shoulder before she left. Two Gypsy Scouts followed her as she left the garden.
Rudolfo clapped, and a server appeared with a bottle and two small glasses. He filled their glasses and vanished.
Petronus dug an ivory pipe and a weathered leather pouch from his plain brown robe and held it up. “May I?”
Rudolfo nodded. “Please.”
Petronus looked nothing like a king, Rudolfo realized, and certainly acted nothing like any Pope he’d seen. He watched the old man pinch dark, sweet-smelling leaves between his thumb and forefinger, watched him shove the wad down into the pipe’s bowl. He struck a match on the table and drew the pipe to life, a cloud of purple smoke collecting and twisting around his head before drifting out over the garden.
Petronus waited until Rudolfo lifted his brandy cup then raised his own. They held their cups up, saying nothing, and then drank.
Rudolfo tasted the sweet fruit, felt the fire as the brandy burned its way into him.
After a minute passed, Rudolfo cleared his voice. The gardens emptied as his Gypsy Scouts and servers shifted to take up positions nearby but out of earshot. “The time to talk plainly is upon us. Vlad Li Tam flees the Named Lands. Sethbert is silent beneath the physicians’ knives. What are your intentions for the Order?”
Petronus shook his head. “You can no longer afford to think like that, Rudolfo. The Order is irrelevant. I am irrelevant. What’s left of the library is all that matters.”
Vlad Li Tam’s words came back to him. A new location for the Great Library. Under a strong caretaker. “You are the Pope. You have a part to play in this.”
Petronus shook his head. “My part in this is nearly finished. I left this behind for a reason. I intend to leave it behind again, Rudolfo.”
Rudolfo blinked. “You can’t mean that. They need you.”
“No,” Petronus said, “they truly don’t.” He sighed. “But you do. And I can give you what you need.”
Rudolfo felt his eyes narrowing. “What is that?”
Petronus exhaled a cloud of smoke. “I can give you the Great Library.”
I could take it. But even as he thought it, Rudolfo knew that he would not. “What do you want?”
“I think you know what I want.”
“Continue,” Rudolfo said. He suddenly knew what was coming.
“I will make it plain.” Petronus looked at him, his eyes suddenly hard and bright. “If your guardianship of Windwir is not sufficient motivation, then by way of the kin-clave between your houses and mine, as King of Windwir and Holy See of the Androfrancine Patriarchy, I require the extradition of Sethbert, former Overseer of the Entrolusian City States. He will be tried for the Desolation of Windwir and for the souls lost in his act of unprovoked warfare.”
Rudolfo thought of Sethbert now, in his cell on Tormentor’s Row. He’d arrived a few days ahead of Rudolfo, and the Gypsy King was surprised at his reluctance to watch the physicians at their work.
Before Windwir, he often took his lunch on the observation deck when they were in session so he could listen to the physicians’ calm exegesis beneath the screams of their patients. But since his trip to the Emerald Coasts, since discovering that he himself-along with the rest of the Named Lands-had languished beneath someone else’s salted knife, he could not bring himself to take comfort in that work any longer. And he’d suspected for a time now that Petronus might invoke the Order’s rights by kin-clave.
“I will extradite him for trial,” Rudolfo said. “But you will give me a Pope if you won’t stay yourself.”
Petronus smiled and shook his head. “I will give you what you need, but I do not guarantee you a Pope.” When Rudolfo opened his mouth to protest, he continued. “The honoring of kin-clave shoul“€in-claved not be confused with someone else’s backward dream.”
Rudolfo tilted his head, not sure if he’d heard properly. “Backward dream?”
“The world of P’andro Whym-like the world of Xhum Y’zir and his Age of Laughing Madness-is not the world of today, Rudolfo, and certainly not the world of tomorrow. In the early days, before the Whymer Bible was compiled, before the Androfrancines named themselves and robed themselves and built their Knowledgeable City at the heart of the world, they met a need because it was there at the moment.” He held up his empty cup, turning it in the candlelight. “The cornerstone of Androfrancine knowledge is that change is the path life takes, yet we all dream backward to what has been rather than dreaming forward to what can be… or better yet, to dream in the now.”
Rudolfo sighed. He could feel the truth of the old man’s words in the dull ache of his muscles and soul from his long, contemplative ride. “We love the past because it is familiar to us,” he said, “whether that past is light or dark.”
“Yes,” Petronus answered. “And sometimes, we try to carve the future into an image of the past. When we do so, we dishonor past, present and future.”
The words struck Rudolfo, and he understood now at least part of Petronus’s strategy. “You do not feel the Androfrancines need a Pope. It is why you left.”
Petronus waved his hand. “It was many things. It was also about knowing my own soul. If I had continued, whatever I did would be a lie.”
Rudolfo leaned forward. “How did you know? What brought you to that place of knowledge?”
Petronus shrugged, and laughed loudly. “My whole life brought me to that place of knowledge. There was no one thing. I woke up one morning and simply knew.” He tapped out his pipe. “You’ll understand soon enough.”
Rudolfo raised his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”
The old man smiled. “Your life has changed, Rudolfo. Your Wandering Army will soon wander no more and your Gypsy Scouts will run the forests without their Gypsy King. You will live in one house with one woman. And soon, your library will be the center of the world. This little town will grow beyond its past just as you have grown beyond yours. Add a few children-an heir to nurture, perhaps…” Petronus let the words die. “I know you know these things. I know you think about them.”
Rudolfo’s guard slipped and his thought slipped with it, coming out in a quiet voice. “What if my life becomes a lie?”
“Or what if it’s becoming true?” Petronus stood.
Rudolfo shook the sudden doubt away, and stood as well.
“Will you take Sethbert off Tormentor’s Row and place him in a simple cell?”
Rudolfo felt a twinge. “I will order it so.”
“I will see him tomorrow.” Petronus walked to the stairs, then turned back to Rudolfo. “We will hold the trial at the conclusion of the Council of Bishops.”
Rudolfo nodded. “I concur.”
Petronus paused at the top of the stairs. “Do you remember what you said of Neb? That he would make a fine captain?”
Rudolfo nodded. The boy was intelligent and capable, a strong leader who influenced others without knowing it. That was a blade that could be sharpened into the fine edge of an intentional strategist. “I do. The Order is fortunate to have him.”