Finally, he stood and left the office, fleeing the manor for the forest. As his feet slapped at the grass and pine needles, Neb suddenly realized that once again his dreams were true.
“You will stand and proclaim him Pope and King in the Gardens of Coronation and Consecration,” Brother Hebda had told him in that first dream of many. “And he will break your heart.”
Brokenhearted, Neb sobbed in the forest of a place that no longer felt like home.
Vlad Li Tam
Vlad Li Tam could not abide wool during the summer, and he wondered how it was that anyone else did. The archeologist’s robes were rough on his skin, particularly after three days in the saddle.
The iron ship had dropped him with his horse and his small entourage on an isolated portion of the coastline near Caldus Bay. He’d sent the remainder of his armada ahead, intending to catch up to them near the Whispering Isles at the edge of the Named Lands.
He’d intended to be done. He’d planned to send his children for this last bit of the work, but in the end he couldn’t, despite Rudolfo’s threat. Years of personally delivering his most important messages would not be denied, and finally, at the end of things, he’d come to the Ninefold Forest for the first time since that night long ago to meet with his seventh son and hear his final words.
The Gypsy Scouts had questioned them briefly about where they’d come from. An Androfrancine at a small table, shielded from the sun by a small canopy, recorded their names and positions within the Order. After the brief interview, he directed them to the field of tents outside town.
They added their own tents to that small canvass city, and while his sons put them up, he wandered among the dark robed men, watching and listening for any scrap or tidbit that might help him.
Eventually, he left the Androfrancine sector and wandered across the wide, low bridge into the town itself. He joined himself with others dressed like him, moving strategically through the parts of the town he would need to visit. Finally, he came to Tormentor’s Row and the low stone buildings that served as the Ninefold Forest’s prison-the one place he knew he would not be able to reach personally and where his coffers were not deep enough to purchase influence. He paused, listening for screams but hearing none. Of course, by now Sethbert would be in a cell. He expected Petronus would have insisted upon that, not wanting to legitimize that particular Whymer interpretation, with its cutting and peeling in the name of redemption.
Those guards would be above reproach, but the cooks would not be. And the message would be easy enough to send through them. A long strand of hair-Sethbert’s sister’s, in fact-tied to the foot of the game hen he would take for his final meal. The hen would be served whole just as Sethbert preferred. And another strand of hair-this one shorter and taken from his nephew Erlund, tied carefully around the small bird’s bill. More threats at the end of a string of threats.
Of course, Vlad Li Tam had no intentions of killing Sethbert’s family. All of his children but those he’d brought with him for this last northward journey-and the daughter who no longer acknowledged him-waited for him on iron ships loaded with all of House Li Tam that they could carry.
But the threat would be clear, and sometimes a threat was enough to move the river. Vlad Li Tam was certain he could count on Sethbert taking the cue and keeping silent. And that silence would let his old friend finish the work he’d been made to do.
Smiling to himself, Vlad Li Tam continued his stroll through the town. He paused again at the gates of the seventh forest manor, studying the windows and doors and comparing them to the drawings and specifications he’d memorized so long ago.
There were messages for the manor as well, messages he would deliver personally.
But only after he finished moving the river.
Chapter 31
Rudolfo
Petronus, the King of Windwir and the Holy See of the Androfrancine Patriarchy, reconvened the council with upraised hands.
Throughout the pavilion, voices went silent. Rudolfo sat aside from the others not just as their host but also as someone who wanted to see as much as he could.
The first two days of the council had been simple matters of organization. Petronus had first submitted himself for examination- receiving confirmation from at least a dozen gray-headed Androfrancines that they did indeed know him to be who the announcements and letters claimed he was. With that out of the way, he issued and expounded upon encyclicals on everything from property dispersal to the construction and management of the library.
Before adjourning for lunch on the third day, he had elicited gasps of surprise when he gestured to the metal men in their acolyte robes. “These new brethren that we have made will watch over our library, and the Gypsy Scouts shall guard them.”
Rudolfo smiled at this.
One of the bishops stood, angry. “They have no souls and you give them the light?”
Petronus had stared at the man and raised one of the new books into the air. “I give them nothing; they earn this. They work night and day to give back what was taken from you.” The Pope smiled. “And you who have souls-how many of you have helped them?”
The bishop reseated himself while Rudolfo smiled.
After lunch, after Petronus reconvened them with his silent blessing, he looked at Rudolfo and gave a grim smile. “Soon,” he said, “I will close this last council of mine. But first, we have unfortunate business together.” He nodded toward the main entrance, and six Gypsy Scouts escorted Sethbert into the tent. They walked slowly to accommodate his shackles.
Rudolfo looked at the man who had once commanded a nation. Despite being fed well under his care, Sethbert had shed most of his fat. His hair had been shorn for the physician’s work. His flesh had been cut, forming the holy lattice of a Whymer Maze upon his skin.
Scars of the Whymer knife, Rudolfo thought.
Rudolfo felt a stab of shame, and turned his eyes away.
Petronus
The crowd went to their feet; the thousand indrawn breaths were audible. But Petronus noted that Rudolfo and Jin Li Tam remained seated.
Petronus looked at the broken man before him. “Sethbert, former Overseer of the Entrolusian City States, once kin-clave of the Androfrancine Order, do you understand why you are here today?”
Sethbert’s lower lip quivered. “I do.”
The work of those damnable physicians. Petronus felt a stab of anger, but suppressed it. But in the truest sense this trial was not for Sethbert’s benefit, it was for his own and for tomorrow. No more backward dreaming
Petronus looked at Isaak and nodded. The metal man stood as Petronus continued. “Did you, of your own free will and with forethought of malice, order this mechoservitor’s script altered in secret?”
Sethbert hung his head. “I did, Father.”
“And what was the nature of this alteration?”
Sethbert looked up briefly, his eyes red and hollow. He opened his mouth and closed it. “I… I had it altered, yes.”
Petronus’s jaw went firm. “How did you alter it?”
Rudolfo looked at Isaak, and found himself squeezing Jin’s hand harder than he realized. The metal man stood alone among his kind, his eye-shutters flickering and his bellows pumping. A low whine came from his exhaust grate.
Petronus studied the man. Sethbert looked around the room, first glancing at the metal man, then taking in the others. He saw Rudolfo, and their eyes met. He saw Jin Li Tam, and she looked away. Finally Sethbert saw Neb, and Petronus heard him gasp at the look of controlled rage upon the young man’s face.
Sethbert’s voice shook and for a moment, Petronus thought his eyes offered an imploring look, not for release but for forgiveness. “I altered it so that he would recite Xhum Y’zir’s Seven Cacophonic Deaths in the central square of Windwir.”